


Skulduggery Pleasant - Dark Days

by AmaraqWolf, purplejabberwocky



Series: Skulduggery Pleasant: Dead Men Walking [5]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, The Dead Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 74,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3077069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaraqWolf/pseuds/AmaraqWolf, https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skulduggery Pleasant is gone, sucked into a parallel dimension overrun by the Faceless Ones. If his bones haven't already been turned to dust, chances are he's insane, driven out of his mind by the horror of the ancient gods. There is no official plan to save him.</p><p>But the Dead Men have never had much time for plans. The problem is that someone else has planned to stop them--and they're succeeding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The man in white

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year, all; have a fic. I realise I've a number of unanswered comments--I plan to take a look at them in the next few days. Thank you for your patience; this one was a toughie.

_The man in white sat back in his seat and listened to the hum of the limousine’s engine. The Arizona desert passed by the tinted windows in a long stretch of grey, brown and green. The air-conditioner provided a light breeze which turned the desert outside into a caricature of hardship._

_Modernity, the man in white had found, reduced everything into a caricature of hardship. No wonder so many in this age claimed mental disorders and oppression—decaying under the weight of their own slothful souls._

_The limousine pulled up to the side of the road and parked, and left its engine on. The woman in the middle seat yawned and examined the ends of her hair, and then seemed to remember he was present and folded her hands in her lap._

_They waited there, safe from the heat of the desert, until an old man came into view down the road, glaring behind him. He turned and saw them and stopped, and the woman opened the door and got out. The old man relaxed, not completely but enough that he approached._

_“I wasn’t expecting_ you _,” he said, and the woman smiled._

_“I wasn’t expecting me either. Come along.”_

_She got back in the car and the old man followed, glancing back at the tinted partition separating the middle seat from the rear. The woman tapped the mirrored partition in front and the driver pulled off onto the road._

_“What are you doing here?” the old man demanded, and the woman shrugged, tossing back her red hair._

_“On behalf of a benefactor, of course.”_

_“Of course.” The old man sneered. “Drop me off at the nearest city. I’ll find my own way.”_

_“To where?” asked the woman, amused. “To Ireland?”_

_“Why?” The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I want to set foot on those damned shores ever again?”_

_“For one thing,” said the woman, “because Thurid Guild has become one of their Elders.”_

_The old man’s lip curled back. “Did he.”_

_“Oh yes. And one of the Dead Men is Grand Mage.”_

_“Are they.”_

_“And Bliss is the other Elder. Doesn’t it just_ rankle _, all those heroes and self-righteous fools being in command of your most hated nation?”_

_“What do you want?”_

_The woman smiled and leaned back in her seat. “We want you to come back to Ireland and help knock a few angels off their pedestals.”_

_“We?”_

_“There’s a reformation happening,” said the woman. “A_ revival _. We’re smaller in number, true, but we have connections now that we haven’t for a very long time. If you come with us again, Dreylan, we can help each other get our vengeance on behalf of everyone oppressed by mortal-lovers.”_

_The old man regarded her and said nothing, and the limousine purred along while eating up the miles. The woman found a bottle of wine and a glass, and poured herself a drink, reclining in her seat. The man in white watched them in the mirror._

_At last Dreylan Scarab said, “I’ll help, on one condition. Who is this ‘benefactor’?”_

_The woman smiled. “Your master and mine, Dreylan. Your master and mine.”_


	2. The plan, such as it is

She missed him.

She missed his voice, and his humour, and his warm arrogance, and those moments seeing him with his brothers when she realised that there was more to life and death than just going to work or school and coming home again.

Valkyrie stared out the window at the rain dripping down the pane. It was the last class of the day, and she was anxious to leave. The clock ticked by with excruciating slowness. The teacher droned on about something Valkyrie didn’t care about. Something about some English king. She didn’t know which one. She could read up on it later anyway—Hopeless’s journals were a lot more interesting and accurate than stupid history books.

There was movement out the window and Valkyrie squinted to see through the grey drizzle. She caught a glimpse of someone ducking into the building.

The bell rang with such suddenness that she jumped, and then scrambled to collect her books. She sat in the middle, against the wall without any windows. Windows were dangerous. The door was further away than she strictly liked, but she wasn’t at the back. If anything came in through the windows she was close enough for a quick exit, but if anyone came through the door she was far enough away that she wasn’t as likely to be threatened.

It wasn’t the sort of thing normal students were meant to think about. Hyper-vigilance, Anton had called it. The awareness of everything around which could be dangerous.

Valkyrie had been aware of things like that for eleven months.

She managed to slip out the door while the rest of her classmates were still wrestling with their desks and hurried toward the exit. Students from other grades flooded the hall, and Valkyrie heard Kara shout her name. She turned and saw Kara waving.

Valkyrie waved back as though she’d mistaken what the other girl wanted and grabbed her bag from her locker, and then made a bee-line for the lobby. She caught a glimpse of Gail near the doors, looking very pale, but then a couple of older students blocked Valkyrie’s view and when she could see again Gail was gone.

Valkyrie found a safe place against the wall to stop and see if she could figure out which direction Gail had escaped, but between the rain and the glass it was no good. Valkyrie resisted the urge to kick the wall and took deep, slow breaths instead.

Valkyrie had been going to the sorcerer’s club because it was the only place involved in magic that didn’t make her think about Aranmore Farm and the aftermath. Gail hadn’t been to the sorcerer’s club more than twice in eleven months. Valkyrie had heard what she’d done during the raid in the Sanctuary. She’d tried to talk to Gail, to let her know that she knew, but Gail had started avoiding her after that. She’d started avoiding everyone after that.

“Valkyrie,” said Ghastly behind her and she whirled and stared. He smiled at her uncertainly.

“Oh my God,” she said, and then leapt forward to hug him. He laughed, a touch forced, and hugged her back. “Oh my God,” she said again, and grinned up at his unscarred face. “That is so cool.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Ghastly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to lead her toward the doors. With his size, none of the students came close to blocking their route. “It’s only for half an hour a day, but every little bit helps.”

“You didn’t mention China finished it.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said, and his smile turned wobbly. That was enough to make Valkyrie’s grin vanish. There was one person Ghastly might never be able to surprise. The person he wanted to surprise most of all.

“Can making people not see you make you vanish all the way?” she blurted out as they came out into the drizzle. Ghastly shifted his coat to cover Valkyrie’s head, and frowned, but then his face cleared.

“You mean Gail?”

“I’ve barely seen her in the last year. I’m pretty sure she’s using her vanishing trick to avoid people.”

“I’ll ask Macha about it,” Ghastly promised, and then they reached the Bentley and he released her so she could climb in the passenger’s seat. He still looked too big to fit behind the wheel, but she knew that was just because she was used to Skulduggery being there. At least looking over and seeing Ghastly there instead no longer made Valkyrie double-take. He touched something on his collarbone and the façade melted away and left his scars behind.

“Where are we going?” Valkyrie asked, buckling up.

 _“Seatbelt,”_ she could almost hear Skulduggery say.

“To a café not far from the Sanctuary,” said Ghastly. “I don’t know the name of it, but Dex and your mother say it’s a good place.”

“I know the one,” said Valkyrie. Now her initial excitement was fading, being with Ghastly felt comfortable but in a sharp sort of way. Ghastly had been there at Aranmore Farm. In a way, that hurt, because it was a reminder. But he also knew what it had been like. Valkyrie didn’t feel awkward just being in the same space as him, just like she didn’t feel awkward being in the same space as the rest of the Dead Men.

She’d felt awkward being in the same space as her parents since they’d come home from their wedding anniversary last year and found out she had been on a battlefield. Mum had shouted at Erskine and Dexter before she found out Skulduggery had been dragged into another dimension. Dad hadn’t, but he had been the one who suggested leaving the world of magic altogether.

Valkyrie hadn’t been there when Hopeless took them both aside, but afterward they were still letting her learn magic—while taking family therapy with the mind-reader. She’d have thought he didn’t have the time, what with being Grand Mage and all, but maybe he used it like a hobby.

The drive was quiet, but comfortable, and by the time they arrived and Ghastly found a park the rain had stopped. Everything was damp and smelled like oil and metal, which she would never get used to. At times like this she missed Haggard. Sometimes she even missed the simplicity of her life before—but only before the last eighteen months. Before the massacre.

Ghastly pulled a hat low over his face and they went into the café. Valkyrie’s gaze went straight to the others, and she couldn’t help but smile. They sat in the corner, of course. Anton sat closest to the wall, prying the lid off a milkshake. There were already two empty cups in front of him. Erskine was lounging next to him, drawing gazes from all over the café and not showing any sign he’d noticed them. Saracen sat next to _him_ , and he was eyeing back the women Erskine was ignoring.

But it was the other two that were most interesting. Rover sat at the head of the table, happily eating the biggest burger Valkyrie had ever seen. Along with fries. And a milkshake. Judging by the number of empty plates on the table, it was his second. Dexter sat watching him eat with an intensity Valkyrie would have found unnerving if she didn’t know Dexter had sat and even slept by Rover’s statue for the months he was trapped.

Valkyrie laughed and went up behind Rover and hugged him. He made a protesting noise, muffled because his mouth was full, but then dropped his burger and swivelled in his chair to yank her into his lap. He chewed in her ear, swallowed, and then hugged her so tightly she wheezed. “Val! Took your time. I told Ghastly I could get to you faster.”

“You’re not getting behind the Bentley’s wheel,” Ghastly said flatly, taking a seat by Anton.

“I wouldn’t have crashed her,” Rover whined.

“Are you really going to argue this?” Ghastly demanded. “Are you really going to argue you have a right to Skulduggery’s Bentley, after what you encouraged Dexter to do?”

“I only encouraged him a _little_ ,” Rover muttered.

“You guys have to tell me what you did,” Valkyrie grumbled. Ghastly had become a lot more lively in the past couple of weeks but he kept poking at Dex and Rover, who kept on acting vaguely ashamed. No one was telling her why, and the curiosity was burning her up.

“Nope.” Rover rested his chin on her shoulder. “You’re now my cuddlebug.”

Valkyrie jabbed her elbow into his solar plexus and wriggled out from his arms while he was wheezing, and then slapped the back of his head. “You don’t deserve a cuddlebug. You keep turning yourself to stone. How many times now?”

“Only a few,” Rover objected, rubbing his head.

“Again last night,” Dexter said, and pushed his plate at him. “Eat.”

“So that makes, like, eight in the last eleven months?”

Rover scooped up his burger and smirked. “Yeah, but it doesn’t work on me anymore. I only stay stone if I _want_ to stay stone.”

“And that makes the first three months when you were huddled in a corner of the garage perfectly okay?” Saracen demanded. “Do you know how much money I wasted on pizza trying to get you to wake up?”

“Do you know how torturous it was, being able to smell it and not eat it?” Rover lamented. “ _Agonising_ , that’s how much. Being able to hear and smell and sometimes see everything around you but still being made of stone? It _sucks_.”

“It’s your fault for overusing your earth-power.” Dexter tapped his plate. “ _Eat_.”

“You’re just being demanding because you enjoy watching me,” Rover informed him, and took a giant bite out of the burger, chewing exaggeratedly.

“Manners,” Anton muttered. He was peering into his milkshake for the dregs, but Valkyrie noticed that he watched Rover eat over the rim of the cup with nearly as much intensity as Dexter was.

She grinned. As horrible as those first few months had been, once Rover came out of his petrification emotions had settled. Even though Skulduggery was gone and Valkyrie hadn’t seen the Dead Men all together for months, they were _back_ together, and Valkyrie knew they would do everything in their power to rescue Skulduggery. Everything still hurt, but the hurt was easier to bear in moments like this. The year before the Faceless Ones had been worse.

Besides, Rover had promised to teach her the earth-power just as soon as he figured out all the rules. Ever since he’d woken up he had been dedicating his time to practising, while Anton long-sufferingly replaced the windows Rover broke when experimenting.

“Do _you_ know what they did to Ghastly?” she asked Erskine.

“I know as many details as I’d like to,” he said, and he was smiling. “But not as many as I thought I did.” He looked past her shoulder and rose, and Valkyrie turned to follow his gaze. She saw her mum and Hopeless enter the café and make straight for them. Erskine bowed. “Administrator.”

Mum made a face. “Oh, stop.”

“Just trying to be respectful in case you want to yell at me again.”

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I _will_ yell at you again.” She grinned at him and Valkyrie relaxed. When they found out Valkyrie had been on an honest-to-God battlefield Mum had been the one doing all the yelling, but she’d also been the one opposed to stopping magic altogether. Valkyrie had suspected she liked her job.

She wasn’t so sure now given what the Administrator had to deal with, but Hopeless had pointed out that they didn’t have anyone else suitable and any magic the Administrator would have to use just involved sigils. So Mum had accepted, though Valkyrie wondered how much begging Hopeless would have done to make sure he _had_ an Administrator.

“Here.” Mum took a paper bag out of her handbag and gave it to Erskine. “He’s all yours.”

 _‘If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were all mothering me,’_ Hopeless signed as he took the seat Saracen pulled out for him.

“What gave you that idea?” Saracen demanded, and then rose. “I’m going to get you all something to eat.”

Valkyrie got up to hug her mother and Rover cooed, so she whapped him as she sat back down.

“How is the Sanctuary faring?” Anton asked, putting down his cup with a vague air of disappointment.

“Well, it hasn’t fallen apart yet,” said Mum with a short laugh. “I’m still not convinced I’m the best person for this job, but since the alternative was that you didn’t _have_ someone for this job, I guess I’m not doing too badly.”

“Of course you’re not,” said Rover in-between chewing.

“ _Manners_ ,” Anton growled, and Rover took a huge bite before grinning at him unrepentantly.

“How are _you_?” Ghastly asked Hopeless. Hopeless shrugged and made a face. Valkyrie had known him long enough by now to know the little crinkle around his eyes was more because of pain than humour these days. Reading the Faceless Ones’ minds had made his headaches worse, even with Kenspeckle’s medicine. The Grand Mage’s office now had one of the most comfortable beds Valkyrie had ever sat on, so Hopeless could lie down when the headaches turned into migraines.

“He’s had his fill of medication for another two hours yet,” said Mum, “but then he’s clear.”

Saracen came back, shoving coins into his wallet. “Now that we’re all here,” he announced, flopping in the chair beside his father, “We’d better call this meeting to order.”

“Not me,” said Mum, and got up, kissing Valkyrie’s head. “I need to stay late at the Sanctuary tonight, because Descry’s leaving early and I have an appointment tomorrow morning. I’ll see you later.” She pointed an accusing finger at Erskine and Dexter. “She goes from here to home, is that understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” said Erskine meekly, and Mum left.

“Should you be here?” Valkyrie asked Hopeless. “I mean, don’t you need plausible deniability?”

Hopeless shrugged. _‘Bliss will know I’m looking the other way no matter what and Guild isn’t going to believe I didn’t know even if it was the truth. As long as I don’t actually do anything to help, it doesn’t matter.’_

Valkyrie watched his hands carefully and still missed a few signs, and by the time Hopeless had shown them to her again, and Saracen had explained them for her, their food had arrived.

“Cheater,” Valkyrie muttered as Saracen smugly served their orders—exactly what they wanted—for them. Anton grunted approval and took his fourth milkshake, and settled back contentedly.

“I’m just helping speed things up,” Saracen said modestly, and Rover pushed away his plate at last.

“Right,” he said, “did I hear a meeting called to order?”

“Where are you on the search?” Valkyrie asked, digging into her chips.

“Where were you last time on our serial?” Rover demanded.

“You found the guy who has the skull but were having trouble actually getting it.”

“Well, you’re behind,” said Rover.

“We found someone who could set up a meeting with the skull’s owner,” Ghastly explained. Erskine grimaced.

“But?” Valkyrie prompted, glancing at him.

“But he’s a vampire,” said Dexter, shrugging apologetically at Erskine.

“The man setting up the meeting, or the man who owns the skull?”

“The former.”

“Well, that’s good. That means you don’t have to leave Erskine out of actually _getting_ the skull.”

“I’d have hated to be left out,” Erskine agreed, straight-faced.

“What about the person who’s trying to get to the skull before you?” Valkyrie asked.

“Nada.” Rover stole a chip.

That was the hardest part about finding the skull. Someone, the Dead Men didn’t know who, had been anticipating them. This mysterious person had thrown off their investigation time and again, and caused a serious delay in actually finding the skull. Guild was the first person who had jumped to everyone’s minds, but Hopeless said it wasn’t him.

“I still think it’s Crux,” Valkyrie muttered.

“He’s still a possibility,” Anton pointed out.

Dex shook his head. “He’s not smart enough to pull this off without us knowing for sure. He might be _involved_ but there’s no way he’s behind it, and without being able to find him there’s no way we can make sure.”

“And by tomorrow afternoon, it hopefully won’t matter,” said Erskine grimly. “But in case it does—” Hopeless shook his head, and Erskine went on without missing a beat. “You don’t have to be in the café. Just close enough to investigate.”

‘ _And if I leave during the day and that day is the day Skulduggery returns, Guild might have grounds for having my influence reduced. It’s not worth the risk. He’s already got a good percentage of the Sanctuary employees reporting directly to him on the basis of relieving my stress.’_

“You could always arrest him,” Valkyrie pointed out. “Chabon, I mean. If he tries to trick you, that’s grounds for fraud, right? So you could hold him for two days and you won’t need to explain the part about the skull if you release him before then or find some proof to keep him in prison for defrauding other people.”

“Our little lawyer,” Saracen said, shaking his head, but grinning. “That’s the plan right now. Tanith is looking into a few contacts to see what she can pull up. Fletcher’s giving her a hand. Or getting in her way. I’m not sure which, but whatever it is, he’s doing it enthusiastically.”

“If we pretend that the meeting is supposed to be a sting to begin with, the exact item for which we’re trading won’t matter,” Erskine continued for him with a nod. “Plausible deniability at its finest.”

“You would know,” said Dex with a ghost of a smile Erskine completely ignored.

“Either way, it means we can get him near Descry. Okay.” Erskine nodded and sat back.

“Excellent,” said Rover cheerfully. “We’re all caught up and have our assignments. Or we will have our assignments, once our weakest links have toddled off to, I don’t know, braid each other’s hair or something.”

“ _We’re_ not the ones who turned ourselves to stone for three months,” said Valkyrie pointedly, and then lost half her mid-afternoon snack to retaliate for the barrage of chips he sent at her.


	3. After-school care

After they finished eating Valkyrie and Hopeless left the others and ambled down the damp street without speaking. It was something they’d only started after the battle at Aranmore, but before Rover had woken up. Valkyrie had been having trouble sleeping and even though her parents had tried to be helpful, she couldn’t help but feel as though just their presence was stifling. Things came to a head when Dad had finally suggested leaving the Sanctuary.

It was one of the conditions of her continuing to learn magic: seeing someone and talking about things with them. Hopeless was the obvious choice. He was _actually_ a doctor, and he was a sorcerer too, and he’d assured them he could handle it.

At first it had been awkward. Valkyrie had managed to get used to the whole mind-reading thing by just not thinking about it that much, but then all of a sudden she’d actually had to talk to someone who already knew what she was feeling. It made it easier, but it also made it feel stupid. Unnecessary. It had taken a little while before she had been able to say anything, so Hopeless had helped her feel more comfortable by teaching her more sign language.

Now she didn’t feel like she _needed_ to say anything. She just enjoyed walking. Hopeless was usually the one who led, because he knew Dublin better, but even then he never had any particular destination in mind. It was soothing.

Except today. Today she _did_ have something she wanted to ask, and just wasn’t sure how to go about it. Was there some kind of rule against asking a mind-reader to make a choice based on something only they would know?

They were blocks and blocks away from the café before Valkyrie realised Hopeless was watching her with a benign smile, and she grinned sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you know where Gail spends most of her time?”

Hopeless shook his head.

Valkyrie slumped. “Darn.”

Hopeless touched her shoulder and when she looked he signed, _‘You’re worried about her.’_

It was the most obvious statement ever, but Valkyrie had talked to Hopeless for too long to miss a prompt. She nodded. “She’s always doing her disappearing thing. She’s stopping coming to club. I mean, it’s not like I do much while I’m there, but at least I go. I barely ever see her.” She looked down at the ground and kicked a stray cigarette stub. “I told her I know what she did to the other Administrator, but I think that just made things worse. At least before she’d let me sit next to her.”

Hopeless didn’t answer, but Valkyrie wasn’t expecting him to. Hopeless didn’t say anything until you were absolutely done.

“I think I get why she is,” Valkyrie went on, after a pause to think it over. “I mean, I was at Aranmore, and I didn’t even _hurt_ anyone. Not badly, anyway. Not like that. But Gail really hates violence, and from what Bliss said it sounded like she barely had any control over her magic at all. So now she’s scared.”

_‘But?’_

Valkyrie scowled and kicked at a pebble. “But it’s not like I was angry at her or anything. I was at Aranmore Farm. Why wouldn’t she trust me enough to know I wouldn’t judge her about it, even if she _is_ scared?” She looked up at him. “Is she at least talking to Macha about it?”

Hopeless shook his head.

“So she’s not talking to _anybody_ , and avoiding everybody, and she’s probably going to disappear because she’s overusing her ‘don’t see me’ magic.”

He smiled in that way that meant he was laughing. _‘I don’t know about the last part, but yes.’_

“Seriously. She’s really pale. She’s paler than she was a year ago. I think she’s going to disappear.”

_‘Then I guess we’ll just have to find out.’_ He stopped and so did Valkyrie, and when she followed his gaze she realised with a start that they were opposite the school. Everything was still damp from the rain earlier, but the clouds had cleared up enough for the sun to show through.

“Why are we here?” she asked.

_‘You’ve been feeling helpless.’_

“Cheater,” she grumbled, but didn’t deny it. She wasn’t allowed to help the Dead Men investigate for the Murder Skull. In fact she’d gotten more paperwork than ever before, to give Dexter and Saracen more time searching. She’d been doing so much of it that the Sanctuary had even started paying her for it, even though she wouldn’t need the money when she turned eighteen.

But it wasn’t enough. In fact it made things worse to know that people were looking out for Skulduggery but Gail wasn’t letting anyone look out for her.

Valkyrie took a deep breath and crossed the road, and Hopeless followed her. His answer hadn’t really been an answer, but she knew better than to ask for more details. She looked around the school grounds.

“I’m here,” she said aloud, because even though Hopeless could read her mind it wasn’t like anyone nearby _knew_ that, “because this is where I last saw Gail, and to find someone you always have to start from the beginning.”

She moved across the lawn, letting her gaze take in everything without actively turning her head to search. Gail liked to hide, but she had stopped using her hiding-place behind the trees now that Valkyrie knew about it. There were other places, though. Places Valkyrie had used herself to avoid the bullies when she was new to the school, and places she had used in the last year to avoid anyone she just didn’t want to talk to.

Like behind those bushes there. And behind the corner of the building, in a little niche between the plumbing and the wall. Valkyrie walked between them, systematically searching every place it was possible to hide. She wasn’t expecting to see Gail in any of them, but she still paused and looked for long enough to break the magic. Just in case.

Then she looked at the ground. It had been rainy, so it was muddy. Footprints were easy to see, and there was only one set of footprints around the side of the school. They were deep, so their owner had waited before leaving. Valkyrie frowned. Why would Gail wait here? There were places near the bus-stop where she could be out of the rain and still be invisible.

Valkyrie straightened up and turned to find Hopeless a few steps behind her, waiting patiently.

“She was here,” she said, just to keep her thoughts in order. “No student would have waited here unless they wanted to be hidden. But she didn’t want anyone around when she left, either.”

Hopeless nodded. _‘That doesn’t mean she went unseen.’_

Valkyrie frowned. Hopeless didn’t make statements unless there was something behind them. Which meant there was someone, someone _here_ , whose mind Hopeless had read to know that they’d seen Gail. She looked across the building’s windows until she saw one with light in the window and went to it, and when she looked in she was startled to see the sorcerer’s club gathered inside.

She knocked on the window until Natalie looked up and snapped her fingers to get the others to notice her. Ifrit bounced to his feet and opened the window for her. “You made it! Kara said she didn’t get to you before you left school.”

“I thought we were meeting tomorrow,” Valkyrie said, poking her head in the window and leaning on the sill.

“We are,” said Natalie, who went back to stretching. “But Kara wanted some help practising, so she asked us to stay behind today. Henry had to leave, though, and Missy didn’t know. What made you rush off so fast, anyway?”

“I had plans for an early dinner and I wanted to see if I could catch Gail before I left,” Valkyrie said, and Farley scoffed.

“Gail’s too good for us nowadays.” He sounded angrier than Valkyrie would have thought. Once upon a time Valkyrie had thought he just really enjoyed being the oldest and lording it over everyone else, but over the past year she’d gotten to know him long enough to know that wasn’t it. He was too reserved about it, and he didn’t do much ordering around. He acted more like a suspicious big brother than an arrogant teen.

“She’s got things going on,” Valkyrie said, and sounded tired even to herself.

“So many things she can’t even stick around for club anymore?” Kara asked, sounding more upset than angry.

Valkyrie sighed. “She was in the Sanctuary during the raid last year. You know, when the Hollow Men and the Diablerie invaded. Things happened and she saw them, and I’m worried because she’s not talking to anyone.”

They all stared at her, even Natalie, who had a reputation for barely looking at anyone at all when she was focussed on her exercises. Ifrit looked vaguely sick. “She was there?”

“How do you know?” Farley demanded, but less heatedly than he usually did.

“Mum works at the Sanctuary,” Valkyrie explained patiently. “I thought I’d come back to see if she was still around. Did any of you see her leave?”

“What about you?” Kara asked. “That car you took today was one of those really expensive old-fashioned ones. Was that a present from your uncle, or something?”

Valkyrie paused before answering. “What makes you think it’s from my uncle?”

Farley gave Kara a dirty look, and she blushed and muttered an apology. “I read a lot of Gordon Edgley’s books,” he said shortly.

Which meant that he’d known who she was, probably for a long time, and hadn’t wanted to say anything. Valkyrie just wasn’t sure whether he’d kept the secret for her sake or his, and right now it didn’t matter. She shrugged. “Then no, it belongs to a friend of the family. He was a friend of my uncle’s, so he keeps an eye on us. Did any of you see Gail after the other students had left?”

She wasn’t surprised when the other three looked at Farley. He was the one who was passing judgement. That was probably because he’d seen something.

“Yes,” Farley admitted. “I was late coming to the club and I saw her meet someone by the entrance. Their car wasn’t as good as _yours_ , but it was a really nice one.”

“Did you see who?” Valkyrie asked, her heart running just a little bit faster.

“Some lady,” said Farley.

“Tall? Short? Fat? Thin? Hair colour? Skin colour?”

“You sound like a detective,” Ifrit said, sounding curious and bemused at once.

Valkyrie took a deep breath to restrain her irritation at all the interruptions. “The friend who owns the Bentley is a detective. Farley, please. What did this woman look like? Was she tall and muscular and with brown skin and really short hair, almost bald, and wearing a grey tunic?”

“No,” said Farley, and he was looking at her strangely. Valkyrie wasn’t sure what his expression was, except that it wasn’t bitter enough to be anger and too resigned to be surprise. “She wasn’t short, but she wasn’t tall. White. Dark hair, about to her shoulders. And she had differently coloured eyes.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Do you know who she is?” Kara asked. “Who’s the lady in grey?”

“Gail’s mum,” said Valkyrie. “I don’t know the woman with differently coloured eyes, but I know some people who might. Thanks, Farley.”

She pulled her head out from the window and turned to leave, but Ifrit poked his head out. “Hey,” he said. “When you find Gail, let her know she should come back, yeah? It’s not the same if she’s gone.”

“I’ll tell her,” Valkyrie promised, and Ifrit closed the window and Valkyrie walked across the grass to Hopeless. “Do you know who that is?” she asked, and he nodded. “But you’re not going to tell me.”

He smiled. _‘It’s your investigation. But I’ve met her before. Her name is Davina Marr.’_

“Who is she? Old Guard? Diablerie? One of Serpine’s people, or one of the Baron’s? Killer for hire?”

_‘Actually,’_ he signed, and he was frowning, _‘the last I knew she was a detective with the US Sanctuary.’_


	4. Home invasion

Dad was already home by the time Hopeless walked Valkyrie in the door. She had wanted to go back to the Sanctuary, but he refused, and she knew better than to argue. She went in and dropped her bag by the door, and held out her arms.

Dad bustled into the hallway and hugged her. “Steph! How was school? Lunch? Business with dead men?”

“Boring, yummy, and fine,” Valkyrie answered into his shoulder.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “I ask because I haven’t planned anything for dinner whatsoever and to warn you that you’ll have to starve tonight if you’re hungry.”

In spite of everything Valkyrie smiled. “Nope. I’m good.”

“Oh, good.” He released her and gave her a brave but uncertain smile. It was the smile she knew best these days, because these days Dad didn’t quite know how to act around her. Eighteen months ago they had been having fun getting magical tours, but now she was someone else and he didn’t know what to do about it.

Impulsively Valkyrie hugged him again, more tightly this time. “I love you, Dad. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know,” he answered, his tone full of warm affront. “How dare you even doubt it.”

“Want to watch movies all night?”

“With popcorn and ice-cream?”

“Only if it’s one or the other.”

“Only if it’s Star Wars.”

“Deal.”

He gave her one more squeeze and let her go to go into the kitchen, and Valkyrie picked up her bag and went to her room, smiling. Things with her parents were harder now than they were, but Valkyrie still wouldn’t give them up for the world.

 

Valkyrie was in the middle of a dream about the Faceless Ones planning to poison the world with sour pineapples when something made her wake up. She lay there for some moments, keeping her breathing steady and without stirring, just in case someone was in her room. Carefully she extended one hand and felt the air to make sure she was alone before sitting up.

The streetlights came in through the window and shone over the possessions in her room. After Aranmore she had gone through a phase of spontaneous housework which included unpacking all her untouched boxes. She had tossed or donated a lot of the things from Haggard. The room looked almost Spartan in comparison to what it used to, but it felt cleaner and more accessible. It was easy to slip out of bed and shrug on the long black coat Ghastly had made for her, and put her silenced phone in her pocket.

She crept out of her room and into the hall. Her parents’ bedroom door was closed, but there was light flickering from downstairs and she could hear voices. Voices belonging to people who weren’t very good at not being loud, either—they kept hissing at each other. Valkyrie rolled her eyes and pulled up her hood, and moved carefully down the stairs. She kept to the shadows, trusting in the coat to help her blend in.

The intruders were in the living-room, but there was a strategically-placed mirror at the end of the hall that let her see into the rooms to either side. It was a housewarming gift from Anton, one of those gilded floor-length ones which belonged in some ancient manor.

Valkyrie leaned on the wall and watched without trying to peer into the room. They were wearing dark clothes. One was short, not much taller than her, but the other was even taller than Skulduggery and all limbs. He tripped over one of the armchairs and cursed, and his shorter partner hissed.

“Can’t we turn on one of the lights?” the taller man whined, rubbing his ankle. Valkyrie was sure she knew that voice, and those gangly limbs, but the man’s name danced out of her memory.

“Of course not,” snapped the shorter man. “Do you want to wake up the whole house, you idiot?”

_That_ voice, Valkyrie recognised. That voice belonged to Remus Crux. He had been fired nearly a year ago for incompetence and slander. Now he was going around breaking and entering? Did he know whose house he was in?

She reached into her pocket, hiding the light of the phone with her coat, and double-dialled Anton, then turned on her voice-recording app.

“What are we looking for?” asked the tall man petulantly.

“Evidence, obviously,” said Crux, lifting up paintings and peering behind them while keeping his tiny ball of flames away. “The Dead Men are up to something, and their _apprentice_ is the weakest link.”

The tall man grumbled wordlessly and started poking around their DVDs. “Why would they give anything important to _her_ to keep?”

“Who would suspect it? It’s classic. Give the important evidence to the last person people would suspect.”

Valkyrie’s phone vibrated and a text from Dexter popped up. _‘30 mins’._

She debated. If she interrupted Crux and his partner, she’d have to hold them until Dexter arrived. There was no guarantee she could do that, and she wasn’t about to wake up her parents. The best thing to do would be to let them continue to poke around and try to stop them only if they made to leave before Dexter got there.

But she could investigate first. Rover had shown her a trick to use air to muffle her footsteps. She buttoned her coat to stop it flapping and slid down the stairs, and lay her phone quietly by the lower step so it could keep recording Crux and his partner. The kitchen was her first stop. Nothing was broken, but some things had been moved around and there was a bowl in the sink that hadn’t been there before. Same with the bathroom. When she went into the laundry she found the door ajar and the lock broken.

Valkyrie left the lock and went back to the stairs. The tall man was still whining, and that particular note in his voice finally jarred something in her mind. It was the man who’d tried to throw her off the church not long before the Baron had escaped—Scapegrace. She sat on the bottom stair and waited.

“So,” Scapegrace said finally, “this evidence. What does it look like?”

“Anything that looks suspicious, obviously.”

“Like what?” Scapegrace picked up one of the journals she’d borrowed from Hopeless and turned a few pages.

“Plans. Notes. Sanctuary records.”

“Doesn’t the Administrator live here?”

Crux straightened up and threw Scapegrace a glare. “Records relating to dangerous or secretive activity,” he said icily, “such as re-opening the portal to the dimension of the Faceless Ones.”

“She’s a little girl.”

“She’s the Dead Men’s apprentice. She knows what they know, I just know it.”

Valkyrie sat there and listened to them argue and look under chairs, behind pictures, around furniture, through books and DVDs. Master criminals they were not. She had to wonder just how they’d met. The Gaol at the Sanctuary was only for the most dangerous, which Scapegrace wasn’t. He would have been moved out long before Crux had been held for questioning. She did vaguely recall filing a report saying Scapegrace had ‘escaped’ from custody, but he wasn’t exactly public enemy number one. Maybe no one had bothered to pursue him yet.

Her eyes felt heavy. She checked her phone’s clock. Still five minutes before Dexter was going to get there, and she was starting to feel sleepy again.

“Nothing’s here,” said Scapegrace, sounding very grumpy. “I told you we should have snuck upstairs. I need to catch up on my vengeance. I need to catch up on my _art_. Now we’ve wasted all this time and I haven’t even managed to kill anyone yet.”

“She knows something!” Crux said, a little louder than was wise, and Scapegrace hissed at him. “She must. They share everything with her—foolishly, I might add.”

“Maybe it’s in her room.”

“If you hadn’t lost that blasted rock—”

“I misplaced it! It wasn’t my fault!”

“The only key to their secret city and you went and _lost_ it.”

Valkyrie sat up.

“It was an accident! She tricked me!”

“It doesn’t matter how you lost it, you lost it. That stone would have given us all the proof we needed the Dead Men aren’t thinking of Ireland’s best interests. Now we’re reduced to rooting about the Administrator’s living-room like a pair of common criminals.”

“I’m hardly a _common_ criminal,” Scapegrace scoffed. “I’m the Killer Supreme. I’m an _extraordinary_ criminal. I’m—”

“You’re staying downstairs to guard the door,” said Crux, very coldly. “ _I’ll_ go and search the little girl’s room.”

Valkyrie’s heart beat faster, and she carefully picked up her phone and rose, using one hand to summon air and muffle her movements. Crux would know she wasn’t in her bed if he went into her room. She moved back upstairs as quickly as she could without breaking the magic, hoping that he’d have to move more quietly because he was heavier. Hurriedly she stuffed clothes under her sheets and blankets, and then used Rover’s air-muffling trick on the window so it didn’t make a sound as she slid it up. She heard Crux’s breathing outside her door and climbed out the window, and dropped to the ground a little more heavily than she meant because she was in a rush.

The laundry was still open. Valkyrie checked her clock. Dexter should be arriving any minute now. She went back inside and almost walked into Scapegrace back in the kitchen. He was peering moodily into their pantry, and after a moment took out a box of cereal and poured himself a bowl, muttering to himself.

Valkyrie breathed through her mouth to be quieter and considered her options. The safest thing for her would be to knock him out, but she didn’t know how to do that without really hurting him. She glanced around the laundry for weapons, but the brooms and mops were behind a bunch of things she couldn’t move without a lot of noise.

Sudden light came through the crack in the door and she peeked out to see Scapegrace had opened the fridge. He took out the milk and poured some into the bowl, and then stood eating at the counter, staring out the window in a way he probably thought was very brooding and manly. It made him look constipated.

Valkryrie took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and muffled her footsteps as she walked out and took a meat-fork from the stand on the counter. She reversed it in her grip, tucked against her sleeve so it didn’t cut her, and held the round end to Scapegrace’s back. “Put down the spoon and raise your hands or I’ll shoot you.”

Scapegrace froze. Valkyrie saw his Adam’s apple bob. “You wouldn’t. You’re a little girl. You shouldn’t even have a gun.”

“They gave me one after the Baron murdered half my family,” Valkyrie said as coldly as she could. “Just in case anyone broke into my house.”

“How did you get down here?” Scapegrace demanded. “Crux has already gone up to your room!”

“Step away from the counter.”

“But the—” Scapegrace gestured lamely at the bowl of cereal.

“Step away from the counter,” Valkyrie repeated, just as coldly as before. Scapegrace shuffled around, craning his back so the fork wasn’t poking into him. He tried to turn his head to see her, but she jabbed him and he yelped. “If you yell, I’ll shoot,” she warned. “Walk slowly.” Grumbling wordlessly Scapegrace followed her direction into the living-room. “Take off your belt.”

“What!” Scapegrace yelped.

Valkyrie prodded him. “Take it off.”

“I’m not going to get _undressed_!”

“I said take off your _belt_ , not get undressed.” She prodded him again. “Do it.” Reluctantly Scapegrace took it off and dropped it on the floor. “Kick it to me and walk four paces forward.” He obeyed and Valkyrie bent to pick up the belt, still watching him. “Now hold your hands behind your back and kneel on the floor facing the wall.”

She knew from training with Tanith just how hard it was to stand up if your hands were tied behind your back, especially if you didn’t have very good balance to begin with. Scapegrace didn’t strike her as the type with very good balance.

He kneeled awkwardly and Valkyrie used his belt to tie his wrists together, ignoring his yelp of discontent.

“I’ll get you for this,” he threatened. Valkyrie got the sashes from the curtains and used one to gag him, then the other to bind his ankles. Then she took a deep breath. One down, but the one that was left was a lot more dangerous—not because he was smart, but because he was so single-minded. Meanwhile all she had was a fork.

No, Valkyrie corrected herself. She had her body too. She wasn’t fully grown, but she’d been training for three years now. Crux wasn’t in good shape in comparison. She also knew the house better than he did. She took a deep, slow breath and left Scapegrace there, and crept back up the stairs.

Down the hall she saw that her parents’ door was open. Shadows caused by firelight danced on the wall. Valkyrie’s heart thudded in her chest and she took slow breaths through her mouth, trying to remember everything Anton and Dexter had taught her about clearing an area. As much as she wanted to go straight to her parents and stop Crux from hurting them, she couldn’t. She needed as much information as possible.

Instead Valkyrie cleared her room, pushing the door back up against the wall. Her bed was untouched, still lumpy with her fake self. Her wardrobe was still closed. So were her bureau drawers. In fact the only thing that had been rummaged through was her desk. She had some schoolbooks there. Some unfinished paperwork. Her drawers were open.

She frowned and glanced around the room, and kept her breathing slow. Why would Crux stop at her desk? What had he found in there that would make him move on to her parents?

Valkyrie checked her phone, took one more breath and then stepped back out into the hallway to take cover in the bathroom entrance, just down from her parents’ room. It put her out of sight in case Crux looked out the door. It also meant she could see into the mirror on the wall just inside the room—another gift from Anton. He said that strategically-placed mirrors were one of the reasons no one dared to try and break the Hotel’s rules without getting caught.

For a moment all she did was watch what was happening inside the room. Mum and Dad were still in bed, but sitting up, clutching each other’s hands. Crux moved around them carrying flames, extended threateningly toward them.

“Mr Crux,” said her mother, very calmly, “understand that if you don’t get out of my house this very moment—”

“Be quiet,” Crux ordered, and closed the wardrobe. “You’ve no right to be giving _me_ orders.”

“Aren’t you meant to be a detective?” asked her dad, sounding puzzled and stunned at once. “I don’t remember this being on the list of detective duties. I should talk to Stephanie about this.”

“I said be quiet.”

“You’ve been out of the loop for a while,” Dad offered, and pointed at Mum with his spare hand. “My wife is the Sanctuary Administrator.”

“Your wife is a fraud. Mortals have no business _dictating_ to sorcerers. Your precious daughter’s journal is all I need to prove that, but if you’re hiding anything else it would be in your best interests to tell me where it is now.”

Valkyrie forced her hands to relax and waited until Crux was turned away before stepping into the doorway behind him, holding the fork backwards. Her parents’ gaze went immediately to her and she shook her head slightly, but Crux saw them looking and whirled around, and drew the gun Valkyrie hadn’t seen under his coat.

He pointed it at her parents but Valkyrie snapped up her hand and the gun went flying. Crux stumbled and threw fire at her, and Valkyrie ducked. It hit the mirror and she smelled the glass scorching, but she was already lunging. Crux snapped his fingers but Valkyrie kicked his wrist and he howled. Her parents scrambled out of the bed. Mum went for her phone and Dad picked up the bedside lamp and swung it at Crux’s head.

Crux snarled and shoved him with air to put him off-balance, and ran for the open window. Valkyrie tried to close it before he got there but the air slid uselessly over the frame instead and he dropped out of sight. Valkyrie cursed and then glanced at her parents. “Sorry.”

“How dare you swear at the home-invader with a gun, Steph,” her father scolded, and then came up to hug her sideways across the shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she said.

Mum disconnected her call and glanced their way, looking relieved and harassed and incredulous at once. “I called Dexter,” she said. “He and Anton just pulled up outside.”

“They missed all the fun,” said Dad, and even though his tone was cheerful his face was still pale.

“They’ll just have to deal with cleaning up,” said Valkyrie. “I left them a present downstairs.”

“That’s my girl.” Dad pulled her into a proper hug and Mum came to join them, and they stayed like that until Dexter came upstairs to find them.


	5. China's dark secret

There were very few subjects about which China felt herself frustratingly ignorant. In fact, she made it a point to ensure she _wasn’t_ frustratingly ignorant. At times honest denial of knowledge may have been a boon, but for the most part she found it simply … irritating.

This was one of those times.

China sat in her favourite, most comfortable chair and looked at the carved stone on the table. It was a nice stone. Good size, good weight, excellent consistency for sigil-work. In the war she had occasionally used such stones as weapons or defensive items, in the event there was no time to prepare wards or weapons. The stone was a tool, that much was clear, and yet she was having trouble defining precisely what sort. Some of the sigils were familiar, but the combinations were ones she had never seen before. It was clearly a spell that had spent some time in development.

Someone pounded the door. China ignored the sound. Her butler would see to whomever was responsible. The night was wearing on, and China still hadn’t figured out what the blasted stone was for.

Her butler’s voice lifted in objection and China looked up with only a faint crease in her brow to show her displeasure. Remus Crux stomped into her library as though he owned it, looking furious and victorious at once. China rose and, under the pretext of picking up a book, swept the stone behind the shelves on the desk.

“Hand it over,” he snarled.

“Remus, how _delightful_ of you to drop in at this late hour,” China said with a smile just a touch too edged to be gracious. “Might I ask as to what you’re referring?”

“The stone you took from Scapegrace!” Crux shouted. “Give it to me, right now.”

“I’m afraid I’ve no notion what you mean.” China turned to slide the book smoothly back onto its shelf.

“Your wiles won’t work on me,” said Crux triumphantly. “Scapegrace was here earlier today and he said ‘ _she_ tricked me’. Therefore, he means _you_.”

Frankly, that was a piece of detective work China hadn’t quite expected of the man. Sometimes China liked to think most sorcerers were a _touch_ more observant than to miss a murder happening right before their eyes, but from all accounts Crux lowered that expectation significantly.

“How very astute of you,” she said calmly, picking up books and returning them to their shelves one by one. “Just as astute as when you noted the connections between the Dead Men and the Diablerie. Do tell me—just how _is_ your work in the Sanctuary going these days?”

She saw him flush in the mirror over the desk. “The Dead Men are staging a conspiracy to take over Ireland. I already have evidence of _that_. What I need is that stone.”

China laughed. “My dear Remus, they _already_ own Ireland. One of them is a Grand Mage. The rest are still national heroes. They could have owned Ireland right from the war if they wished.”

He leaned in, his eyes glittering. “Give me the stone, and I won’t go to the Dead Men with what I know.”

“I’m growing tired of this threat, Remus,” China said, very calmly. She replaced a book and turned to him, and looked at him coldly. “So you said a year ago, soon after you were fired. So you said again when you wished to know more of the Diablerie. And again. And again. I do not respond well to threats, Remus.”

Crux’s nostrils flared. “If the Dead Men discovered what you did—”

“The Dead Men already know,” she said. “So you see, your threat has very little hold over me.”

It wasn’t _precisely_ a lie. Hopeless was, in many ways, the sum of the Dead Men. One might say he was all of them combined. She had rarely felt terror comparable to the day he had come to her and looked her in the eye and told her, quite simply, that she was going to stop blackmailing Ravel because she, herself, had a secret she wanted no one else to know. And what that secret was. And why she had made the choice which led to it.

Now she was almost grateful for the fact that Hopeless knew. Whatever had caused the Dead Men’s recent break, whatever difficulties they were now overcoming, none of them would risk it happening again so soon afterward. Hopeless would make sure Crux was stopped before any of the other Dead Men found out enough to let their anger cloud their judgement. His position and the unit’s co-dependency upon one another were far too delicate to do otherwise.

Crux went very still. “You’re conspiring with them.”

“Hardly.” China turned to continue re-shelving the books. Presenting her back to a man like Crux would only antagonise him, she knew. She also didn’t particularly care. He was a small man with a small mind, potentially dangerous only because of what he knew, and the damage had already been removed from that knowledge. “They don’t need my help.”

“Of course not,” Crux said, and there was a note in his voice she’d never heard before, a note she didn’t like. A combination of victory and understanding. “Because they have Hopeless. The mind-reader.”

China was irritated to admit that she almost jerked in surprise. Almost. Instead she stilled for a shameful moment before resuming her task. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do,” said Crux with savage glee. “That’s why you’re unafraid I’ll tell the Dead Men. _Hopeless_ is the one who knows. And you think he’ll stop the others from killing you.”

The man was a fool. A dead fool. Why hadn’t the Dead Men killed him yet? Surely they knew he knew what Hopeless’s magic was. Ravel and Shudder, in particular, were more than protective enough to ensure the man could say nothing. The only thing she could imagine was that Crux had managed to make himself scarce in the wake of the Faceless Ones’ attack.

Once China was certain her expression showed nothing she turned to face him. “Do you have a point, Remus?”

“What will you do when Hopeless is arrested for conspiracy against the nation?” Crux asked gleefully. “What will you do when his magic is discovered by the world and he is rightfully imprisoned for every mind he’s invaded?” He took a step forward, a broad smile twisting his face. “I am not the only one who knows about Hopeless, China. But if you help now I will ensure _your_ secret will not get out.”

For several moments China didn’t answer. If anything happened to Hopeless, they would have more to worry about than her secret. “You plan to report him, then,” she murmured. “One wonders just why you’ve refrained this long.”

“I _did_ report him,” Crux snapped. “He has the whole Sanctuary under his spell. Including your own brother.” China felt a flicker of surprise she didn’t let show. Crux stepped forward. “If you help me I’ll forget anything I know about your wicked past. I can’t imagine you’d be unhappy to see him go away, either. How much does _he_ know?”

“I’m not such a fool as to cross the Dead Men,” China said.

“You don’t have a choice. If you don’t then when Hopeless goes down, when the Dead Men go down, I’ll make sure you go with them.”

China looked at him for a very long moment and then turned to the bookcase and shuffled some of the books down their shelves to make room for others. “I see.” One of the books jammed. She reached in to push it aside and came out with a derringer, and she levelled it at Crux and very calmly shot him in the head, and watched dispassionately as his body fell to the floor.

Hopeless wasn’t going to approve. China found she didn’t particularly care. He owed her now, and she _was_ going to collect.


	6. The fact of the matter

The rest of the night was not fun. Dexter called in the Cleavers and they formed a protective detail around the neighbourhood in case Crux returned. The gun was taken as evidence. Scapegrace was arrested. Anton very calmly cleaned up everything Crux had untidied, washed the dishes Scapegrace had used, and made them cups of tea while Dexter took their statements.

Valkyrie managed to pull Dexter aside soon after her parents decided they were going to try to sleep some more and Anton stationed himself in the living-room to fold their laundry.

“We have a problem,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself and sitting on her bed.

“You mean _besides_ the fact that you could have been murdered in your sleep by a bitter idiot?” Dexter asked. He sat beside her and wrapped an arm around her, and Valkyrie leaned into his side. “What’s up? Boys at school giving you trouble? Do we need to have Discussions on behalf of the brothers you don’t have?”

Valkyrie had to laugh, and she felt better afterward. “No. Scapegrace and Crux know about the Tír.”

“They _what_?”

She dug out her phone and turned on the recording app, and they listened in silence. There was a snippet Valkyrie had missed while she secured the rest of the house, but it was mostly just Scapegrace complaining and Crux telling him to shut up. Mostly.

_“I don’t see why the others can’t do this,”_ Scapegrace muttered on the recording.

_“The others aren’t invested in this line of investigation. Frankly, we don’t need their help._ They _are criminals and losers, and I will only use them as absolutely necessary.”_

_“They don’t like me, you know.”_

_“No one likes you, Vaurien.”_

_“I wish that woman liked me …”_

_“Dear God, you sound like one of China Sorrows’ sycophants.”_

_“I wish she liked me too. Don’t I deserve to be liked? I’m a nice person. Ask anyone.”_

The recording went on like that for a few seconds until Crux told Scapegrace to shut up, and that was about when Valkyrie had returned. They listened to the rest of the clip in silence, and then Dexter sighed and rubbed his face.

“Right. Well. Send that to me. I’ll have to take it to Erskine and Adaeze. If Scapegrace had a dimensional key then chances are he used to live on the Tír.”

“I wonder who tricked him out of it,” Valkyrie said. “Knowing Scapegrace, it could have been anyone.”

“Only someone who suspects it’s something worthwhile,” Dexter pointed out. “But you’re right, that could be a lot of people.”

“One very likely person, though. Would she admit it?”

“Probably not,” Dexter admitted. “And going to her about it would only prove it’s something she wants to keep. We’ll leave it alone for the moment.”

“There’s something else,” said Valkyrie. “Crux has my journal.”

Dexter nudged her with his side. “You never struck me as the journal type.”

“Descry had me start writing it after Aranmore. You know, for my therapy. I wrote stuff about the Tír in there.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It feels like my fault,” Valkyrie muttered, and Dexter knuckled her head gently with his fist.

“Unless you sent Crux and Scapegrace a text inviting them into your house while you’re all asleep, it’s not your fault. The fact you feel like it is only means you have a massively overdeveloped sense of responsibility.”

“Rover tried to tell me that once.”

“He probably mangled it.”

“Doesn’t he always?”

“ _Always_.” They shared a grin and he squeezed her across the shoulders. “You should get some sleep. If you want to come with me tomorrow I can spring you from school for extracurricular credit.”

Valkyrie hesitated. Usually she’d jump on that in an instant, but there was something else she had to do, and she needed to go to school for it. “I can’t. I need to talk to Gail. She hasn’t been talking to anyone about what happened at the Sanctuary and she went off with an American stranger after school today.”

“An American?” Dexter frowned.

“Hopeless said her name is Davina Marr. She’s—”

“A detective.” Dexter’s frown soured into something Valkyrie had never seen him wear before. It wasn’t a scowl, exactly, but there was something bitter about it. “I know her. We all do.”

“How?”

“For one thing, she hates Skulduggery.”

“A lot of people hate Skulduggery. What’s her excuse?”

“He got away with things she never could,” said Dexter. “Davina Marr is born for war. She’s ruthless and driven. She’d have made a wonderful assassin or front-line warrior. The problem is that she’s also cruel and utterly selfish, and she was born too close to the end of the war to use her talents in a situation that would be socially acceptable.”

“What does that have to do with the Dead Men?” Valkyrie asked, and Dexter smiled grimly.

“The things Marr enjoys are things for which she should rightly be arrested. The same things we did in war as a matter of necessity. Serpine wasn’t the only person tried at the end of the war, you know. The Dead Men got away with a lot. Marr didn’t. Skulduggery was the one who arrested her.”

“And now she’s a _detective_?”

Dexter shrugged. “Her crimes had enough reasonable doubt that she wasn’t convicted. We, the Dead Men, knew what she had done but there wasn’t enough evidence to keep her imprisoned, and she’s an American national. They chose not to push the issue. But she always held a grudge that we got away with what she couldn’t.”

“And Gail’s with her.”

“And Gail’s with her,” said Dexter. “You’re right. You need to go to school. If you can, get Gail away from her. If you can’t, get more information on what Marr’s doing in Ireland. She’s doing it without alerting the Irish Sanctuary, which means either the American Sanctuaries need a talking-to or Marr herself has an ulterior motive.”

“I’ll find out,” Valkyrie promised, and Dexter hugged her again.

“I know. Now go get some sleep. Anton will stay here overnight. Meanwhile, I’m going to go talk to your old-new friend, Gracie.”

“Save some for me,” said Valkyrie, and he laughed and got up and pulled down her covers. She pulled off her jacket and crawled into bed, and let him tuck her in. Within a few minutes she was asleep.

 

Dexter rang Erskine the moment he couldn’t be overheard. He didn’t like having to hide the call from Anton given all they’d just been through, but he still didn’t have permission to go around telling the others about the Tír. Maybe soon that wouldn’t be a problem—but not yet.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Erskine complained the moment he picked up.

“You were still awake,” Dexter said.

“And you almost woke Descry. Dex, if you’re going to tell me there’s been a little wrinkle in our plans …”

“Not for the ones tomorrow. Erskine, Crux and Scapegrace invaded the Edgley house tonight.”

At once Erskine sounded just a touch more alert. “Are they alright?”

“They’re fine, but we’ve got a few snags. Crux has figured out Melissa is a mortal and he’s probably going to whine about it. And he’s working with Vaurien Scapegrace, who apparently told him about the Tír.”

There was a pause. “One, who is Scapegrace? Two, does anyone else know?”

“He’s the idiot who tried to throw Valkyrie off the church roof last year, and probably. They talked about others but gave no names, and Scapegrace lost his dimensional key to a woman who tricked him out of it.”

“China?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked.”

Erskine sighed. “You’re going to make me do it, aren’t you?”

“I was thinking about it,” said Dexter, but he was smiling. “But then I decided it would probably be easier for you to get any information on Scapegrace’s Tír citizenship. I’m sure whatever he tells me is going to be wildly exaggerated.”

“You want me to go to the Tír?” Erskine asked dryly. “Dex, I currently have a redheaded mind-reader sprawled on my lap and sleeping relatively peacefully.”

“You could also just call.”

“So could you.”

“They don’t know me. You’re their _prince_.”

“I hate you,” said Erskine, “and just for that I’m going to give you Adaeze’s number and make you call her yourself. Or at least ask Digger for help.”

“She’ll hate me for waking her up.”

“You’ll live.” He sighed and there were a few moments of silence before he spoke again. “Descry is usually up around five. I’ll head into the Tír then and see what I can find on short notice, but if I don’t find anything before the exchange I’ll leave it up to the precinct.”

Dexter exhaled. “That’s fair. I need to go back to the Sanctuary to interrogate Scapegrace. And I might just go to talk to China. Good night, Erskine.”

He disconnected the call and looked up at the cloudy night sky, tapping his phone against the heel of his palm. If anyone was going to know why Marr might be in Ireland, it would be China. Her library was closer than the Sanctuary, and Scapegrace could do to cool his heels for a while. Dexter could always swing back around to the Edgleys to give Valkyrie what he found out.

Within twenty minutes he was walking up to China’s library. The halls were empty, which wasn’t unusual, but when he arrived at the library itself there was no one inside even this late at night. That was unusual. A lot of sorcerers enjoyed the quiet of the late hours.

No one came to greet him immediately, either. Cautiously Dexter moved forward, scanning the cases in sight and cupping his hand to hide the energy in it.

“Dexter, please do come in,” China said somewhere from out of sight, sounding resigned and irritable.

“Thank you,” said Dexter, “I will.” He followed the sound of her voice, relaxing slightly but not completely. When he came around the side of the bookcases he found China seated at a desk and leafing through a small leatherbound journal, with a small patch of rustiness on the floorboards at her feet.

“Who died?” he asked.

“Remus Crux,” China said without looking up, and Dexter stopped short of stepping over the patch. “My butler should return soon to finish cleaning.”

“You murdered Crux,” Dexter said flatly.

China closed the book and looked up at him, and smiled. “I was surprised you hadn’t killed him yourself yet, given what he knew about Hopeless’s magic.”

“Mostly because we’re not the types to murder people for what they know.” Dexter looked around and found an armchair, and sat in it, skirting the patch of dried blood. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to draw attention to yourself so explicitly.”

“So you did know,” China said. “How … surprising.”

“Why did you kill him, China?”

She smiled at him, and his heart skipped a beat. “Are you going to arrest me, Detective Vex?” He looked at her until she sighed. “He still believed the Dead Men are responsible for everything the Diablerie’s done. And he believed it was his duty to bring that knowledge, and the knowledge of Hopeless’s magic, to the rest of the world.”

“And you’re protecting us out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” China said calmly. “I dislike chaos. Hopeless being overthrown in such a manner would only serve to weaken Ireland’s position, and given recent events that is highly undesirable. But that is not why you’re here, hm?”

“No, but it does tie off a loose end.” Dexter debated for a moment and then shrugged. “Crux and a partner broke into the Edgley house tonight. He threatened the Administrator.”

“Which does not, in the least, incline me to regret my decision.”

“He stole Valkyrie’s journal,” said Dexter casually, but he held her gaze.

“Fancy that.”

“I wonder what could possibly have happened to it afterward. Given that he’s dead and all.”

China smiled and held out the journal. “If you wanted it back, all you had to do was ask.”

Dexter took it without blinking. “And the stone?”

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” said China.

For a moment Dexter watched her watching him. China did like trades, and Dexter did need to know some things. Erskine wouldn’t be happy, but at this point they didn’t have all that much to lose. “I won’t harass you about it,” he said finally, “if you tell me what you know about Davina Marr and why she might be in Ireland on apparently unofficial business.”

A flicker of surprise crossed China’s face, and it was only because Dexter knew how to see it that he saw it at all. “Marr is in Ireland?”

This time Dexter was the one who felt surprised. “You didn’t know?”

China frowned. “I knew that she had become interested in certain Irish stakeholders, but I hadn’t realised she had become so concerned as to come here to oversee them.”

“What sort of Irish stakeholders?”

She smiled ironically. “The Diablerie. She rang to ask me a few questions, but that was from America.”

“How can you be sure?”

“GPS, of course,” China said with a lift of her delicate eyebrow. “The call was unexpected. I was curious. She seemed to think the Diablerie had arrived in America, and wished to know more. I told her it was entirely possible some of them were hiding out in America, but I rather doubted there was anything there of interest to them.”

“Then why is she here?”

“Oh, Dexter.” China rose and moved past him and patted his cheek. “If you’d like me to find out more you’re going to have to _offer_ more than just a vague promise not to pursue something I don’t even have.”

Dexter sighed, almost rolled his eyes, decided it was worth doing anyway. “You know what you have, and so do I, and if you pursue that it’s on your own head when you regret it.”

“I very rarely regret the pursuit of knowledge, Dexter,” said China, activating the sigils on the small desk against the other wall to set her water boiling. “Tea?”

“Coffee, please,” Dexter said. He wasn’t likely to get back to bed tonight, so he might as well fill his veins with it. “What do you want, then?”

“Oh, I’m sure we can think of a few ways to spend the next few hours,” China said carelessly, throwing a carefully carefree smile over her shoulder. The sort that made Dexter’s breath hitch. He raised an eyebrow instead.

“Really. You admitted to murdering a man less than an hour ago and you’ve in the past blackmailed a good friend of mine so badly he essentially refuses to have anything to do with you, and you want to dally?”

China only laughed. “It was worth a try. I’m in need of a de-stresser. But, if you’d rather not volunteer, I’m sure I can find someone else to oblige.”

“Please just wait until I’ve left. Really. What do you want?”

He waited with resigned impatience as China poured herself a cup of tea and Dexter a mug of coffee, and put in the fixings. She put them both up and brought his mug to him, and then sat regally in her chair and smiled. “I don’t believe there’s anything I want, or need, which you can give me.”

“Nothing,” Dexter said flatly.

“Nothing at all.”

She smiled at him as he drank, and he watched her sip her tea. They regarded each other until Dexter finished his coffee and set it down, and rose. “Good evening, China.”

Then Dexter turned and left, carrying Valkyrie’s journal and reaching into his pocket to call Erskine and warn him that China Sorrows could enter his city at will.


	7. Faery circle

Erskine yawned and rubbed his eyes, and sleepily watched the countryside pass him by through the Beemobile’s window. There was a package of warm cookies on his lap. It was six o’clock in the morning. In four hours he had to be back in Dublin, ready to help the others apprehend Chabon. They were fully expecting some interference, or at the very least a switch.

The Beemobile drove right through the desert scrub, the engine purring like a much smaller car and the wheels handling the terrain with the occasional sway but not much in the way of a tremor. There was a CD playing softly, some sort of Italian opera. Between that and the lull of the car, Erskine was feeling drowsy. In fact, he was decently sure he’d already slept away most of the drive.

“I could have taken a taxi, you know,” he said, and stifled another yawn. “S’not like—the Beemobile is much less noticeable.”

Hopeless only smiled wryly and shook his head.

“You’d think you didn’t trust me to take a taxi,” Erskine grumbled, and Hopeless gave him an arch look that made Erskine hunch down into his seat. The black shine of the sky’s reflection in the lake came into view around a hillock, and the boulders past it were dark shapes. They had come at Roarhaven from the opposite direction, where there was no road. It meant that Hopeless could navigate between anyone potentially awake and take Erskine right to the tunnel entrance. A taxi couldn’t have done that.

Several times Hopeless slowed or outright stopped, letting the engine run idle and nearly silent until something unseen had shifted in their favour. Erskine found himself very glad they had decided to spend as much money and magic as they had on Hopeless’s new truck—with the proviso, of course, that Erskine never got behind the wheel.

Hopeless pulled up right beside the rock hiding the interdimensional bridge. Erskine picked up his cookies and opened the door, and stepped out.

“Have fun running the country today,” he said with a grin, and closed the door to block the crumbled wad of paper Hopeless threw at him. Erskine took a few steps back to clear the way and watched as the black-and-yellow striped truck pulled off, quiet as only an enchanted all-terrain vehicle could be. After all, Rover had said gleefully, Hopeless needed to be able to sneak up on the bees.

No one had bothered to point out that no bee was going to be fooled by a painted truck with bobbles on the antenna and giant transparent wings attached to the top of the cab. Seeing Hopeless lay eyes on the truck, knowing only that they were building him one, and then burst into doubled-over laughter had been well worth the indignity of decorating the thing.

Erskine turned and rounded the boulder, and slipped in through the dimensional bridge. The walk into the Tír was enough to clear the cobwebs out of his head, so he was somewhat more alert than he had been by the time he came to the guardroom.

The guards looked even more alert. It was late morning in the Tír; they were fresh. Erskine was jealous, but he still waved and smiled to himself at their startled snapping salutes. The attention occasionally got tiring, but he did rather enjoy surprising people who didn’t expect to see him.

Besides which, it was nice to be able to go out in the sunlight. Ireland had been dreary for days, not that it was anything unusual.

Erskine stepped out into the Éire courtyard and lifted his chin. He breathed deeply for the salt air and was taken by surprise at the sudden rush of warmth. He had spent most of his life without having a home, and even when he’d begun the city he hadn’t thought of it as _his_. Over time, somehow, that had changed. He just hadn’t noticed until now, perhaps because until now it had been a secret.

It wasn’t a secret anymore. At least, only half of one. People were beginning to notice. Dexter knew outright. Valkyrie. His friends on the Tír had collided with his friends in Ireland not even a year ago. Suddenly the city felt like his. Suddenly Erskine _wanted_ to show it to his family. Suddenly, he felt as though he was coming home.

“After we get Skulduggery back,” Erskine promised himself out loud. Promised the others, too.

He made his way to the precinct, choosing to travel by ferry so he could take advantage of the sea air and take the time to text Corrival. Soon enough he and the others would be rushing around frantically, trying to stop the world from ending in their rescue attempt. Right now, he would take the peace.

When Erskine reached the precinct he made his way straight to Digger’s desk. She looked up at him from her desk and then looked down again with a grunt. “If you’re here to take me walkabout, I’m gonna stick a thing where the sun don’t shine.”

“I thought you’d enjoy getting out from behind a desk,” Erskine said, putting the package on her desk. “Here. Peace offering. Descry made them last night.”

“Cookies?” Digger spun on her chair and tore open the package, and stuffed one of the cookies in her mouth with a sigh. “Yer forgiv’n.”

Erskine grinned. “I know. But I do need a hand, and you’ll be able to help me without making me leap through too many hoops.”

Digger nudged the package with her foot to make more of the cookies slide out, and she counted them. “A dozen cookies’ll make sure I hear you out.”

“I need details about a sorcerer who emigrated from Ireland,” said Erskine. “I know he was issued a dimensional key and I know he took it with him out of the city, but I don’t know how long he was here or those with whom he became affiliated. I also know he used to be a resident of Roarhaven, so he would have gone through a security check.”

“Which is why you came to me instead of the pollies upstairs,” said Digger, picking up another cookie. “I dunno, Ravel. It’s not like I’ve been camping in the records room, and unless you can give me a general era that’s a lot of trees to sort through.”

“I can give you a name and we can have a rifle through the computer.”

“Technology,” Digger muttered, but she swung her feet off the dash and prodded the sigil under the desk to activate it. “Can’t match holding something in your hands.”

“That depends on what you’re holding, and the alternative is to go rifling through a room full of paper.”

“Think of the cripple, Ravel.”

“You’re not a cripple, Digger.”

She scoffed and whacked her thigh. “Eleven months and I still need a cane on cold nights. Maybe I’ll get back in the field. Maybe I won’t. Until that day I’m not moving my ass from this chair for a name. C’mere and punch it in.”

With a practiced wriggle she rolled her chair to the side and Erskine rose to come around and type Scapegrace’s name into the holographic dash. He was startled by the scrolling list which appeared. Digger whistled. “Your boy here’s made a lot of complaints.”

That’s all most of them were: complaints. Complaints about noisy neighbours. Complaints about Guard brutality. Complaints about oppression.

“Surprised he wasn’t a member of the Old Guard,” Digger said.

“He’s not smart enough to be accepted into the Old Guard. The man’s an idiot.”

“Bloody sook, too.”

Erskine scrolled to the very start of Scapegrace’s record. “Alright. He immigrated in the second rush, back in the thirties. A while ago, then. You would have a record of his leaving the city, right?”

“Should be there,” said Digger, so Erskine scrolled back down, but slowly to skim the rest of the file as he went. There was something of a pattern, he found. The initial complaints were essentially customer service—usually with regard to the quality of Scapegrace’s care and lodgings. After he found a job and an apartment, the complaints migrated to the areas in which he lived and worked.

“He’s affiliated with a few members of the Old Guard,” Erskine said, and checked his watch. If he had the time, maybe he could visit some old friends of his, just to ask. One or two actually were members of the Old Guard, but they knew him too well and appreciated the city too much to actually do anything but air old grievances. They might know more about Scapegrace from a perspective which didn’t include enforcing the law on him.

Digger snorted. “That’s a generous description. Look how many complaints have been made against _him_.”

“He really hasn’t made himself lovable.” Most people in the Tír could handle their affairs on their own, even the mortals. The fact that these complaints even got on file said a lot about how annoying Scapegrace really was, even if it was in petty ways. Erskine reached the end of the file and frowned. “Hm.”

“Eh?” Digger looked up from the paper file on her lap.

“He never left,” Erskine said slowly. “The last update on his file was back in the seventies, but there’s no official record of his leaving. No visa. No anything.”

“Rack off.” Digger swivelled her chair around to glance over his shoulder, and frowned. “That’s not right.”

Erskine sat back. “Is there any more recent way for someone to leave the city without it being recorded by the precinct?”

“Bugger that,” said Digger.

“There are times I wonder whether you’re even speaking English.”

Digger shook her head and pushed him away so she could access the keyboard, and opened some of the files. “His case-worker was a mortal. Died yonks ago, about the time his record ends.”

“And his most current affiliations?”

“There are none,” said Digger. “At least none that are official.” She scowled and sat back in her chair, rubbing her thigh. “As far as the city is concerned, he never left. Someone wasn’t paying attention on duty.”

“Okay.” Erskine looked at his watch again and sighed. “I’m going to go check up on a few old friends and see what they say about things.”

“I can go have a squizz at his old workplace if you like,” said Digger, and flicked at the hologram. “Be a chance to get out in the field again. It’s not like it’s an _official_ investigation or anything.”

Erskine laughed and rose, and clapped a hand to her shoulder. “Call me if you find anything.”

Madam Mist was likely in the Éire Tower, so Erskine went first to the governor’s offices to warn Adaeze that China Sorrows was most likely going to turn up in the city within the next few days. He checked his phone on the way and saw a text from Corrival letting him know that he was available for a chat, and diverted to Corrival’s office on the next level of the precinct. He’d been officially hired less than a month after the Faceless Ones had invaded, being nearly the only person the precinct could trust not to be in Batu’s Old Guard and with the experience needed to actually sort through the guilty and the innocent. Since then he had become more of an internal-affairs officer than anything else.

Erskine peered in the door and glanced around. “Cosy.”

“Tiny,” Corrival grumbled, “but still a step up from a tent, I suppose. Sit down and tell me what’s happening in Ireland.”

He indicated the armchair crammed into the corner and Erskine kicked the door closed and sank into the chair with a sigh. “Well, for starters, Scarab has been released three days early.”

“He what,” said Corrival flatly, and Erskine shrugged.

“The Americans didn’t even bother to let us know. Descry had to read the ambassador’s mind and then humiliate the truth out of him.”

“Is that going to put a crimp in your plans to rescue Skulduggery?”

“What plans to rescue Skulduggery?” Corrival looked at him without speaking until Erskine broke and smiled grimly. “I don’t think so. Scarab hasn’t been around for long enough to know what happened, and even if he did he wouldn’t care. He’d rather go for someone he can hurt. Not that it matters to you anyway, so if you like I can give you the news which is relevant.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the fact that China Sorrows has procured a dimensional key and the location of the Tír’s Irish bridge.”

Corrival groaned and rubbed his face. “Can you bring me any good news once in a while, Ravel?”

Erskine shrugged. “Valkyrie’s training is apparently going well and we have a date with Chabon to buy Skulduggery’s skull in about three hours?”

“Then why the bloody hell are you over here?”

“The man who gave China the key is a resident,” Erskine explained. “I wanted to see his records.”

“You know, for a secret city you have an awful lot of security leaks,” Corrival observed.

“Maybe a few more than three years ago,” Erskine admitted, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands. “Gordon gave me a book of trustworthy publishers, writers and media sources when he died. Mortals. I’ve been approaching them over the last few years to help close the gap between the outside world and the city.”

“I didn’t realise Edgley knew.”

“He was too prominent a writer for me to pass up the chance of knowing him. His connections mean that when the truth comes out, it might just be a smoother revelation for everyone.”

“Not everyone,” said Corrival. “There are too many religious zealots around to expect anything other than an outcry. I didn’t think you were so close to outing the city.”

“We’re not,” Erskine admitted. “We’re just preparing for the eventuality. The end is coming, but it may not be for another—” There was a flash in the lights and they turned red, and both men blinked at them with surprise.

“I was given to believe that means the tower is in a state of emergency,” said Corrival after a moment.

“It does,” said Erskine, equal parts baffled and concerned. “But I was just down in the precinct, and there was nothing wrong.” He got to his feet and went for the door, but before he left the office the loudspeaker activated and Erskine froze.

“Attention residents of the city,” said the Torment, “I have control of your governor and your central tower, and the tower belonging to the Irish. Should no one attempt to be foolish, the governor will remain alive. If you wish your city to remain as peaceful as it is currently, you will give us what we want.” There was a pause and Erskine looked at Corrival, and even though he couldn’t see his own face he knew he was pale. “We want Erskine Ravel.”

It was strange, Erskine thought, how you could be an accomplished fighter and still find yourself surprised by situations that made you freeze. He could only have imagined what he looked like just then, but Corrival got to his feet and clamped a hand to his shoulder and squeezed, and the pressure loosened some of the raw panic.

“Ravel,” said the Torment, and this time his voice was low and dangerous, and personal. “If you want your precious city to survive, you’ll turn yourself over immediately. Good day.”

The intercom broadcast ended and Erskine’s legs suddenly felt like jelly, and he submitted to Corrival’s hand guiding him back into the armchair. It took a few tries to wet his mouth enough to speak. “They’re lying.”

“About which part?” Corrival asked.

“Even if I turn myself in,” said Erskine, “they’ll never let the city go unscathed. Adaeze might even be dead already.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Erskine put his face in his hands and breathed, and tried to think. His mind went round and round instead. He was supposed to be helping rescue Skulduggery in three hours, but the Torment would have left someone guarding the bridge. The Torment hated Erskine. He hated everything the Tír represented. There was no way he would let it all continue unharmed now that he had managed, somehow, to get in.

How _had_ he gotten in? How had he found the bridge? How had he found a key? Dexter had assumed Scapegrace’s key had gone to China, but had it? Had she bartered the key for something from the remaining Children?

“Erskine.” Corrival put a hand in his hair and forced him to raise his head, and Erskine looked at him, swallowing hard. Up until the Tír had been built the only things he’d ever had to care about were the Dead Men, but he had never frozen where their safety was concerned and they were legendary for their ability to survive. How could he possibly be at a loss for action now, when the thing at threat was so much more vulnerable?

Corrival studied him for a moment and then patted his cheek, just once, and it was more than half a light slap. Erskine flinched, but the sting helped clear his head somewhat and the gentle squeeze Corrival gave his shoulder helped even more.

“You don’t go out much around here,” said Corrival, “and you spend most of your time hiding in the shadows so no one can look at you and think you’re a better man than you feel you are. So I’m going to tell you something, and you had better listen, because I still don’t like repeating myself.” He tapped Erskine’s temple. “You still think of this city as your baby, as something that needs nursing to make it through the ups and downs. That’s why you’re so afraid of letting people see you. You’re afraid they’ll _rely_ on you, and you’re wise enough to know that it can’t be its own thing as long as it’s ruled by a single man.”

“It _can’t_ —”

“Stow that,” Corrival growled, and out of sheer force of habit Erskine shut up. “What you haven’t been able to see is that the city doesn’t _need_ to rely on you anymore. They respect you because of what you did, not because of who you are. They respect you because of what you mean to their past, not because you control their future. If you go around thinking that everything which happens here is your responsibility, you’re a lot more tied up in its present existence than the city is in yours.” He paused. “Let me put that another way: they don’t _need_ you, Ravel. They just like to have you around. And if you think these people will accept the Torment and his merry band of malcontents taking over, with or without your input, then you need to spend less time sulking and more time engaging with your people.”

For what seemed like far too long Erskine sat and let all that swirl in his mind. Corrival got up and moved over to the cabinet behind his desk and poured them both a glass of brandy, and brought one over to Erskine. Erskine accepted it and was numbly surprised to find his hands were steady.

“Well?” Corrival asked expectantly.

Erskine looked down into the brandy and then lifted it to take a draught. “I think I’d better go down to the precinct and see how I can help.”

“Good,” said Corrival, and downed all of his in one mouthful. “I’d best come down with you, since you insist on feeling all shy about things. We’ll kick some Torment arse, prove to you that your city’s grown up enough not to need their daddy around, and then get home in time for you to save Skulduggery’s bony backside.”

“You’ve given me a two-and-a-half hour time limit,” Erskine pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

“You’ve beaten better odds,” Corrival said, putting down his glass and shrugging on his coat. “Coming?”

In spite of everything, Erskine smiled. He finished off his brandy and got to his feet. “Let’s go.”


	8. Friends and foes

“Val. Hey, Val.” Someone poked her and Valkyrie grunted and lifted her head to look blearily at Kara. “Late night?” Kara asked with a grin.

“Dude.” Natalie leaned in and poked the side of Valkyrie’s mouth. “You were dead away.”

“Shut up,” Valkyrie muttered, wiping her mouth and sitting up, and looking around the room. “S’the bell gone?”

“Yep,” said Kara, taking a seat at her table. “And it didn’t even wake you up. Don’t you have class?”

“Study break,” said Valkyrie, and yawned widely, rubbing her eyes. She’d known beforehand that going anywhere else before class started would have been a dumb idea. She’d have fallen asleep anyway, so she may as well do it somewhere she was supposed to be—the study room.

“What _were_ you doing all night?” Natalie demanded, flopping down in a chair and using her foot to drag the spare closer so she could put her legs on it.

“Some idiots broke into our house last night,” Valkyrie muttered. “Sorcerers. M’parents are mortals so I got to deal with them until someone else got there.” Even though Dad technically wasn’t mortal, but Valkyrie felt better about calling them that ever since going to the Tír. Everyone had a nickname in the Tír, and it was more about whether you _used_ magic than whether you _had_ it.

“You got burgled and your parents made you come to _school_?” Natalie looked impressed. “Wow.”

“No, Dad wanted to wrap me in bubblewrap,” said Valkyrie. “I told them I had to come. I have to talk to Gail.” It had just been really, really hard getting up in time, and she’d basically been a zombie when Mum dropped her off on her way to her appointment, and she didn’t even remember _seeing_ Gail this morning.

“Who is that lady Farley saw her talking to, do you think?” Kara asked, and Valkyrie shrugged. It probably wasn’t wise it was to go around talking about details.

“Have you seen her this morning?” she asked instead.

Kara shook her head. “She’s in Ifrit’s homeroom, though, and he hasn’t seen her either.”

Valkyrie’s heart skipped a beat and the surge of adrenaline to wake her up a little more. “She wasn’t in homeroom?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Maybe she didn’t even come to school at all,” said Natalie, but Valkyrie’s mind was racing. She got out her phone and dialled the Sanctuary.

“Hello, Sanctuary servic—”

“I need Macha Morrígna’s number.”

“That number’s—”

“I’m requesting it on behalf of—” Valkyrie winced. “On behalf of Dexter Vex. This is Valkyrie Cain.”

There was a moment of silence and then the woman exhaled with a long, “Ohhhhhh. Alright. Wait a moment.”

“ _You know Dexter Vex_?!” Kara breathed, and Valkyrie didn’t dare to look up to see the look on her face.

“He’s one of my tutors,” she muttered.

“You’re being tutored by _Dexter Vex_?!” The high note at the end of the question made Valkyrie cringe, but then the receptionist came back on the line.

“Ready? Here it is.” She read out the number and Valkyrie scribbled it down in the little notebook she’d taken to carrying around just in case.

“Thank you,” she said, and hung up.

“Who’s Macha Morrígna?” Natalie demanded. “Why didn’t you _tell_ us you knew Dexter Vex?”

“Because I knew you’d react like you are now,” Valkyrie said shortly, and punched in Macha’s number, wishing she’d thought to get it back when they had gone to the Sanctuary after the Faceless Ones tried to invade. “I don’t want people to act like I did something special just because I happen to know the right people. Hello, Macha?”

“Cain?” said Macha, sounding tense. “What is it?”

“Did Gail get home last night?”

For a moment Macha said nothing, but Valkyrie heard the sounds of sparring in the background. “No,” Macha said at last, sounding odd. “I went home and she wasn’t there. But there was a note. She said she was with _you_.”

Valkyrie took a deep breath, counted to five and let it out slowly. “She wasn’t with me,” she said. “She’s been refusing to talk to me for months. But one of our friends saw her leave school with someone we don’t know yesterday.”

“Who?”

Valkyrie hesitated. “I’m not sure I should say. Dexter and I are looking into it.”

“You know their name?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me when you find them so I can rip out their spleen.” Macha hung up and Valkyrie winced, and when she looked up she saw both Natalie and Kara staring at her.

“Who was that?” Natalie asked after a moment.

“That was Gail’s mum,” Valkyrie admitted. “She’s a Cleaver trainer at the Sanctuary.”

“I heard only ex-Cleavers trained— _oh_.” Kara looked sick. “So that’s why Gail never talks about her parents.”

Natalie was still staring. “Who the bloody hell are the two of you, anyway? Really? I know _Farley_ knows something but he’s tighter than—” She stopped and frowned like someone searching for an appropriate phrase.

“Than a sodomist’s arse,” Valkyrie supplied unthinkingly.

“Val!” Kara exclaimed, half laughing and half shocked, and Valkyrie blushed.

“Sorry. Something one of my tutors likes to say.”

“Your _tutors_ ,” said Natalie. “As in, plural. As in, more than just Dexter Vex.”

“OooohmyGod.” Kara’s eyes went suddenly very, very wide, and her voice went very hushed, but shaking with excitement. “Val are you being trained by the _Dead Men_!?”

Valkyrie groaned. “Don’t tell the others. _Please_. I don’t need Ifrit spazzing all over me, or Farley thinking I’m even more of a threat, or Henry getting all huffy.”

“Do you have an apprenticeship?” Natalie asked, and after a moment Valkyrie nodded. Natalie looked impressed and jealous at once. “Cool.”

Kara was making strangled noises and Valkyrie couldn’t help but grin at her, but sheepishly. “See? Didn’t want to break you.”

“All that time I’ve been spazzing out over Dexter being a conjurer,” Kara moaned. “And you were sitting there _knowing him_ and oh my God, Cain, I hate you. Also, that picture in my mother’s book? Please tell me it’s accurate.”

Valkyrie thought of seeing Dexter shirtless during sparring, healing and after showering in the gym, and felt her cheeks warm. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that picture is accurate.”

The sound Kara made was somewhere between a squeal and a moan, and Natalie laughed. “If you’re not careful, you _will_ make her combust. So you know the others too, then?”

Her tone was too casual to be casual, and she was gazing back down at her leg while she resumed her stretches. Valkyrie grinned at her. “Why? Do you have someone else in mind?”

“ _Well,_ it’s not like Vex is the most limber or anything—”

“Not the most—” Kara caught her shout before more than a couple of students looked their way and leaned over to whisper furiously. “ _Not the most limber?!_ Did you _see_ the picture in my mum’s book?”

Natalie waved a hand dismissively. “He works out. That’s not the same as being _limber_. I’m a dancer, not a fighter. I’m an _artist._ ”

“You’re a show-off,” Kara muttered.

“Please don’t tell me you’re into _Larrikin_ ,” said Valkyrie. First her cousin, now Natalie? Rover was a personality, but you had to know him to really appreciate his eccentricities as much as they annoyed you. “You do know he and Vex are married, right?”

“They are?” Kara asked with a blink. “To who?”

“To each other,” said Valkyrie, and then laughed at the expressions on their faces. “They needed an excuse to have a party.”

“Was that even _legal_ back then?” Kara wondered.

“Apparently, but only under magical law.”

Natalie shook her head. “I’m not interested in Larrikin, anyway.”

“Then who?”

“She likes unusual guys,” Kara said in a stage-whisper, and Natalie blushed deeply and threw a wadded up ball of paper at her.

“Shut up.”

“Unusual—” Valkyrie stopped and stared. “Oh. My God. Is it _Shudder_? Are you serious? You like _Shudder_?” Natalie tossed her hair back and ignored her, but her blush didn’t go away. “Oh my God. You do realise he’s a fighter too, right?”

“He’s a martial artist,” Natalie corrected. “Martial arts done right is what the name says it is: an _art._ Vex is a brawler. He goes out _looking_ for fights. Shudder doesn’t unless he really, really has to.”

“Larrikin’s an _acrobat_. That’s as far from being a fighter as you can get.”

“Larrikin’s too … _happy_. He’s got no motivation. He’d never get anything done.”

Maybe it was partly the fact that Valkyrie had barely gotten any sleep the night before, but when she started laughing she couldn’t stop. She just went on and on, planting her face against the table, until she heard Kara say, “I think you broke her.”

“It’s not like I _only_ like Shudder,” Natalie muttered. “Most sorcerers care all kinds about their magic. Shudder doesn’t seem to. And neither does Bespoke. And his mother was called the goddess of the battlefield, did you know that? Now _she_ was an artist.”

“Is Bespoke really so—um.”

Valkyrie caught her breath and looked up to see Kara hesitate, looking embarrassed. “You mean ugly?” she asked, wiping her eyes. “Yeah, he really is. I mean, it’s not his fault or anything and it takes some getting used to, but yeah. He really is. But you’d be better off going for Anton, Natalie.” She grinned wickedly at Natalie’s snort. “Ghastly’s got his eye on someone already.”

“Really?” Kara asked, leaning her chin in her hands. “Who?”

Valkyrie only shook her head, still grinning. “Nope. Not going to jinx it. They’ve been dancing circles around each other for like two years and it’s adorable. Stupid, but adorable.”

“You had better be planning to introduce us, Val,” said Kara. “Otherwise I’m going to be _really_ unhappy.” She paused. “I don’t suppose you could ask Dexter how he managed to conjure when he’s an energy-thrower?”

“I _could_ ,” said Valkyrie thoughtfully, her eyes wide and innocent. “But why _would_ I?”

Kara glared and Natalie laughed, and Valkyrie leaned back in her chair with a warm bubble in her chest she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt before. Whatever was happening with Gail, she would find out what it was. She owed Gail that. But at the same time it was kind of … nice, to know she could still make friends with people her own age. Strange, but nice.

“So when you say that Larrikin and Dexter are married …” Kara began, and Valkyrie grinned. Having friends she could tease was even better.

 

Adaeze Chiabuoto sat in her chair in her office and listened to the spiders chattering at each other over her head. She wasn’t bound. She was, after all, only mortal. A mortal, in comparison to a faery, was nearly powerless.

She did nothing to dissuade the insurgent Children of this fact. When they had burst into her office and she had seen one of her guards killed before her eyes, she had not fought. They disdained her for that. Let them. There were ways of fighting beyond making a show of strength where it would be useless.

Instead Adaeze watched the old man who stood in her office as though it was his. As though he’d _earned_ it. He’d been a spider, before. When she rose to see the commotion, he had been the one to burst through the doors and bite off Damien’s head, and then he’d been the one to knock her to the floor.

She’d thought she’d also be dead in that moment, but instead he had only transformed back into a man and sneered at her, and told his companions to guard her.

He saw her looking and looked back. His eyes were bright and sharp. Cutting. This was Mist’s brother? Even unblooded relations had similarities, and yet Adaeze couldn’t see any connection at all save they could both turn into spiders.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked. His voice was gravelly.

“Yes,” said Adaeze evenly, and he gave a sharp nod.

“Good. Then you’ve the capacity to learn your proper place.”

Adaeze declined to answer. She merely looked at him, patient and silent, until his lip curled and he turned away again.

“Any sign of him?” he asked one of the others by the door, a man with two daggers who leaned against the wall looking very bored.

“No,” said the man with a short laugh, “but are you surprised? He’s more of a coward than he pretended. You should have left him in that dungeon.”

The Torment grunted, regarding Adaeze. “Cowardly, perhaps, but I would not have expected even Ravel to abandon the weak under his care. No matter what manner of a traitor he is.”

“I would,” said the man with the daggers, and leered at Adaeze. “Can I give him some incentive?”

“Not yet. Perhaps soon. Portia?”

The man’s grin turned ugly. “Has Mist cornered. Old bitch is still—”

The Torment whirled suddenly and then the man was on the ground with the Torment standing over him, his dark eyes cold. “You _will_ show respect.”

The man with the daggers swore hard and wiped blood off his chin from his split lip. “She’s as much a traitor as Ravel is! Even more of one!”

“Be that as it may,” said the Torment, “Madam Mist is a Child and a leader, and the likes of you shall not disrespect her. When the time comes, _I_ will be the one to kill her.”

“You’re getting Ravel too,” muttered the man with the daggers as he got to his feet. “Who’s going to be left for _us_ to kill?”

The Torment smiled, and even though he showed no teeth the sight of it sent more chills down Adaeze’s spine than the man with the daggers. “The whole of the city, Syc. The whole of the city.”

Syc laughed and Adaeze looked away out the window, and said nothing as she watched the high, broad-winged figures of the hang-gliders vanish past the eaves toward the tower’s roof.

 

Erskine disconnected his call and strode from the wall into the bullpen, rowdy with noise. Half of that noise dropped abruptly the moment those nearest saw him approach. Corrival looked up from his intense discussion with Khutulun—affectionately named the General, officially titled the precinct’s superintendent.

“All set?” Corrival asked.

“All set,” Erskine agreed. “Twenty minutes at the most.” He checked his pocketwatch. He had just under two hours to get back to Dublin. Maybe Fletcher would be willing to teleport him there.

“The gliders have reached the roof of the tower,” said Khutulun. Corrival wasn’t tall, but she barely reached his shoulder. For Erskine she had to crane her head upward, her narrow eyes blinking slowly. She had the sort of face which looked perpetually sleepy. The mind behind it wasn’t precisely that of a warrior, or a tactician; Khutulun possessed a sort of implacable drive for order which suited an administrator well, and she had held her position since there _was_ a precinct. Usually she preferred to leave the actual giving-of-orders to someone else—almost anyone else—but every now and then something happened which was important enough to draw her out of her sea of paperwork.

The governor being held hostage counted.

“The circles?” Erskine asked.

“We’ve fixed the damage since Sanguine sabotaged them,” said Khutulun, “but we haven’t deactivated them yet.”

Khutulun may not have been a tactician—but she did, fortunately, understand that order could be had in very roundabout ways. Like a sharp-edged puzzle, instead of a straight line. Like a _web_. To catch some spiders, they needed to be just as intricate.

The insurgent Children didn’t know much about the Tír. None of the ones in the city, not even the Old Guard, were willing to sacrifice their quality of life to feed information to them—otherwise the Torment would have known how to break in a long time ago. The insurgents had penetrated deeply, but if they thought they’d be able to get out as easily they were in for a surprise.

Khutulun’s phone chimed and she glanced at the message. “O’Connell’s team is in place.”

Erskine exhaled. “Alright. I guess I’m off, then. Wish me luck.”

“If you die before the others get Skulduggery back, I’ll make sure you never hear the end of it,” said Corrival, and Erskine laughed as he went to the elevator and punched the button for the governor’s office.


	9. Marring reputations

_Guild was not a happy man. He wasn’t a particularly_ unhappy _man, however, which frankly had been more than he was expecting given the manner in which Hopeless had become Grand Mage. Guild’s own plans to become Grand Mage now had a slim-at-best chance of working. Hopeless simply knew too much. Really, Guild should have expected that—he ought to have remembered that, before Hopeless was a Dead Man, he had been Meritorious’s manservant. Of course he would know everything his master had._

_At first Guild had hoped that Hopeless’s proclivity for remaining out of the spotlight might be beneficial to Guild’s own ambitions, but no such luck. Resistant Hopeless might have been, but he certainly didn’t hold back once he was in a position of authority. He hadn’t mentioned Guild’s own secret again—but it was only a matter of time._

_No, what was benefiting Guild the most thus far was Hopeless’s own apparently failing health. Hopeless didn’t make a muchness of it, but anyone with eyes could see how the man was prone to migraines or that the Administrator was regulating his medication intake. Hopeless was liked well enough that Guild had managed to sway a fair number of people into reporting to him—for the sake of the Grand Mage’s health, of course. Hopeless was too canny not to know, but so far he hadn’t seen fit to call anyone on it. Guild didn’t like him, but at least Hopeless wasn’t petty. He needed Guild too much to make trouble._

_Bliss hadn’t been quite as much help as Guild had hoped, either. Whatever alliance Hopeless and Bliss seemed to have made was wary, but strong. It was rather disgruntling, actually; Guild had always thought of Bliss as_ his _ally, and yet Bliss was protecting Hopeless’s secrets. Not that Guild agreed with Crux’s foolish belief about the Dead Men being involved with the Diablerie, but there was certainly something Hopeless was hiding. Something important._

_That was why Guild was currently taking any and all offers of information. Ireland may have thus far been able to present a very strong front after the previous two years, thanks in no small part to Hopeless’s admittedly admirable skill in diplomacy, but Guild held no illusions they were a strong Sanctuary. There were too many secrets going around._

_So he was quite curious as to why one of America’s finest detectives had called to request a meeting. Guild had been following Davina Marr’s career for a few years now. She was far more interested in international matters than most detectives, and quite astute. He was aware of the charges that had been made against her, and that they had originated from Ireland, but that only made her presence in his country more intriguing._

_She’d refused to come to his office. Guild supposed he couldn’t blame her; if she was there on business, certain personages within the Sanctuary would feel it was their prerogative to interfere._

_Instead Guild had agreed to meet her outside the Sanctuary before he went into work, in one of the cafés not too far away but not well frequented by Sanctuary personnel. When he arrived Marr was already there, standing off to the side with a takeaway cup of coffee and looking irritated. Given the swarm of chattering consumers, Guild couldn’t very well blame her for that, either._

_She saw him and he nodded at her but went into the line, and she waited for him while he paid and moved aside to wait for his drink._

_“Good morning, Elder Guild,” said Marr, politely but non-committedly._

_“Detective Marr,” said Guild. “What do you need to talk about?”_

_“The state of your administration,” said Marr._

_“If you’re here on behalf of the American Sanctuary—”_

_“I’m not,” Marr interrupted, and Guild wait a moment to squash the irritation._

_“Then what?”_

_“Your Grand Mage,” said Marr._

_“What about him?”_

_Crux had claimed that Hopeless was involved in shady businesses, but not even Guild had been able to believe it. Hopeless was manipulative, but he had never been anything less than dedicated to Ireland. Now a second person was coming forward with information about him? Guild wasn’t having doubts, but … he was curious. Annoyed, but curious._

_“He’s a mind-reader,” said Marr._

_Guild frowned. Crux had claimed the same thing. “So? Mind-reading is an inexpert art—”_

_“Not the way he does it,” Marr interrupted again, and Guild swallowed more annoyance._

_“And he does it … how, precisely?”_

_Marr shrugged and her lip curled. “Damned if I know the details, but apparently he doesn’t need physical contact to hear thoughts. He doesn’t need people to be asleep, either.”_

_“That’s impossible,” Guild said flatly. “Psychic power in that form is inexact because of the limitations of human psychology. The subject being asleep is what protects the reader from being driven insane by the depth and intensity of a waking mind.”_

_“Of course,” said Marr. “It’s not as if Hopeless is constantly sick, or anything.”_

_The barista called Guild’s number and he was grateful for the space it gave him to recover from the shock of realisation. He went to the counter and collected his coffee and lingered over the milk and sugar, and when he turned around again he felt more composed._

_“Why are you telling me this?” he demanded. “Why not your own Elders?”_

_“I’m willing to give Ireland the chance to fix its government,” said Marr. “Bisahalani wouldn’t do the same.” She drained her cup and tossed it in the bin. “I’ve got more, if you need extra proof.”_

_Guild took all of two seconds to answer. “Show me.”_


	10. The giant

Anton wasn’t the smartest of the Dead Men, or the most observant, or even the most compassionate. He knew that, and didn’t particularly mind. He had a place and a purpose, and didn’t see the point in wishing for skills he didn’t have.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t notice when something was a little off, and he had. Erskine and Dexter were spending a lot of time together lately, which was not a bad thing but in the wake of Skulduggery’s revelation was an _unusual_ thing. Anton suspected not even they had anticipated bonding again so quickly after Dexter’s own betrayal. It didn’t seem to have much to do with _that_ , however—there was altogether too much intent in how they spoke to one another.

Erskine had a secret of his own. Anton didn’t know what it was, obviously, though surely it wasn’t dangerous—not like Skulduggery’s was dangerous, at least; otherwise they’d have never kept it a secret. Anton wasn’t expecting to be told, either. People came to him when they needed, not before.

So it wasn’t _quite_ a surprise to get a call from Erskine, but it was unexpected. Particularly as the coordinates Erskine had given him were in the middle of the ocean. Even more because they were due to rescue Skulduggery in a couple of hours.

Anton stood looking at the map behind the reception-desk, the one over the rows of keys, his brow wrinkled. The Hotel was built on leys, which technically did run underwater, but without foundation the Hotel would collapse. It wasn’t that Anton doubted Erskine’s request … but he did want to know why Erskine had made it. It was very odd, even for one of the Dead Men.

The door opened and closed and Anton didn’t turn as he said, “I regret to inform you that the Hotel is temporarily closed.”

“What a pity,” said Dreylan Scarab, and Anton spun. “I’ll just have to wait in the commons, then.”

He stood there inside the door, an old man at barely three-hundred, bearing a newly-purchased suitcase. For a very long moment they remained in stalemate. It wasn’t often Anton was at a loss for action, but he was now; Erskine needed him and yet there was no way he could get Scarab to leave without forcibly ejecting him, and therefore breaking his own rule of non-violence toward a patron. And it was obvious Scarab _was_ there as a patron.

“I’ll just let myself in,” said Scarab, and did so, and dropped his suitcase by the counter. Anton went to his ledger and wrote Scarab’s name into one of the rooms furthest from the stairs, with the window that jammed.

It was the only acceptable choice he had. The others involved breaking his word, and he could not do so and remain a man of any integrity. And he couldn’t do that and remain in control. Even now, the tightness of the gist in his chest was hot and bitter.

“Are you familiar with the rules of this establishment?” he asked.

“I’ve been told,” said Scarab, and this close Anton could see the slight curl of his lip and the coldness in his eyes. Anton looked into those cold eyes and wished Scarab had died in prison. It was what he deserved, after killing a good man like Esryn Vanguard.

“There is no violence against patrons within the Hotel,” he said. “Anyone instigating conflict will face me. Theft or breaking into occupied rooms not yours will constitute instigation of conflict.”

The sneer became more pronounced. So did the anger. “You’re assuming I _would_. In case you didn’t notice, your friends have stolen most of my life from me.”

“Yes,” said Anton, “that’s what concerns me.”

“You’re wrong,” said Scarab, “and you didn’t even bother to question whether those friends of yours were wrong, either. I was innocent of those charges, and now I’m an old man when I’m meant to be at the prime of my life.”

“You were a killer.”

“But I was imprisoned for killing Vanguard, and I didn’t. Do you call that justice?”

Anton looked at him, at this angry husk of a man known for murdering dozens of others and enjoying it. “Yes,” he said, “You were a killer and you deserve to be locked away.”

“Then so do you, gist-user,” said Scarab coldly, “or have you forgotten how many people _you_ slaughtered in the name of righteousness?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Anton answered, “but I never claimed to be righteous, and I never fell so far as to kill for the sake of pleasure. All men are _dangerous_ , Scarab. Those who delight in the pain of others are the ones who should be locked away. You are one such man, and you _deserved_ to die in prison.”

“And you claim to be impartial,” Scarab sneered, “while standing there and judging me.”

“I claim to be _reputable_ ,” Anton corrected. “You will come to no harm within my Hotel, unless you begin the conflict yourself. But I know men of your kind, Scarab. Sooner or later, you _will_ begin the conflict. When you do, I will be ready.”

For a long time Scarab stood there and looked at him, angry and helpless and in Anton’s way just for existing where he was. Anton held out his room-key and after a moment Scarab snatched it up and picked up his suitcase, and strode stiffly to the stairs.

“Lunch will consist of leftovers,” Anton called after him, “and can be found in the common-area fridge. You may serve yourself.”

Scarab made no answer, and Anton watched him vanish up the stairs to the third floor before dialling Corrival’s number. The former general answered immediately. “Don’t tell me we’re having issues, Shudder.”

“We’re having issues,” said Anton quietly, gaze still on the stairs.

“Of course we are. What kind of issues?”

“Someone has checked into the Hotel whom I cannot eject without breaking the Hotel rules.”

There was a moment of silence while Corrival ran that over in his head. Anton didn’t broadcast his patrons’ identities. That would be unprofessional. But in the end Corrival cursed and said, “It’s Scarab, isn’t it? Bloody—fine. Okay. Come anyway.”

“Is that wise?”

“No,” said Corrival, “but we need you too much. Can you lock him in?”

“I’m not at liberty to limit my patrons’ movements.” He had been spending altogether too much time contravening his ‘twelve-hour’ rule for the Dead Men as it was. The grandfather clock on the second floor hadn’t been connected to the wards for longer than a few months in the past few _years_.

A sigh. “Fine. Fine. Just see if you can’t avoid him leaving the Hotel for a bit. When you get here, you’ll be in the middle of a park with a tower looming over it. And water. Lots of water around. Someone will be waiting for you to take you where you need to go.”

“And what will I find there?” Anton asked, turning back to the map with a furrow in his brow.

“Children of the Spider,” said Corrival, “attacking other Children of the Spider. If you need someone’s orders to follow and we’re not available, follow Madam Mist’s. Otherwise, assume hostage-situation rescue procedures.”

In one rare moment, Anton found himself burning with intense curiosity. He let it slide through him, and ignored it. “Very well. Who is my contact?”

“Officers Blair Dempsey and Alice Owens,” said Corrival, and Anton heard a commotion in the background. “I need to go. Don’t be late.”

The connection ended and Anton put the landline in its cradle and spoke into the intercom. “Hotel transfer in progress.”

Then he touched the Hotel’s current location in Costa Rica’s La Amistad International Park and traced it to a confluence of leys in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

 

Blair waited nervously outside the misshapen patch of concrete that had been in the Green since before Blair could remember. It had just always been there. Someone regularly came around to ensure it was clean and the grass verges were trimmed, and every so often the children used it as a playground or a sports-pitch.

“Did you know this was for the Midnight Hotel?” he asked Alice.

“I don’t think _anyone_ knew,” said Alice without looking away from the space above the foundation. She was almost quivering.

“If you’re not careful you’ll combust,” Blair muttered.

“You don’t get to criticise me,” Alice shot back, “not when you were shitting yourself over the gorgeous hunks.”

Blair felt his cheeks go red and he cleared his throat and stood at attention, though not without mumbling: “You were doing some shitting too.”

Alice didn’t answer, because that was when the ground vibrated and the beams of a building grew out of the concrete like a fast-sprouting oak. There was something off; it seemed to take just a touch longer than it should have, and the earth beneath them trembled, and there was something glowing through the blooming windows. But then there was a thud and the Midnight Hotel stood before them, leaving only a faint acrid scent in the air.

For a long moment neither of them moved. They just had to stand there, gazing up at the Hotel in awe.

“The Midnight Hotel,” Alice whispered. “The first translocational building in history. The first dwelling ever to even come close to penetrating dimensional barriers.”

Wordlessly Blair nodded, unable to move. It was one of those old buildings all eaves and thick timber and stone, and it seemed instantly as though it had dwelt forever wherever it was. Whoever had plotted the foundation had been dead on: the Hotel settled on the concrete as though it was coming home after a very long time.

“Do you think it’s okay?” Alice asked, still quietly. “I mean, it looked like that was difficult. It had to come right through our dimensional shields.”

“It’s not _alive_ , Alice.”

“How do you know?” Alice demanded, and then the door opened and she fell silent and they watched with silent awe as a man exited the Hotel. He was tall, and thin, with greying hair braided back and looking distinguished but remarkably like a funeral director in his suit. Then he looked at them and Blair’s mouth dried up. His expression was impassive, like stone, but not cold or angry. When he looked at them, Blair felt as though he was being seen right through.

“Officers,” said Mr Shudder, and his voice was quiet and gravelly. Like she’d been struck by an electric shock Alice stepped forward and snapped a salute. Blair felt as though even that courtesy was beyond him right then. He’d joined the border-guards with the intent of being able to leave the city’s confines, with the hope of meeting famous sorcerers, but only in his wildest dreams had he ever imagined meeting multiple members of the Dead Men.

Of course, he’d usually been able to comport himself with more dignity in those imaginings.

“Mr Shudder,” said Alice, and Blair envied her. “I’m Officer Owens, this is Officer Dempsey. We’re to take you to the mission point, and give you the rundown of the situation.”

“Very well,” said Mr Shudder, and there was a moment of awkward silence before Blair realised he was waiting for them to do their bloody jobs.

“Forty-five minutes ago the Tír’s governor was taken hostage by the Torment and insurgent Children of the Spider,” he began, and Mr Shudder slid easily between the words without seeming as though he was actually interrupting.

“Pretend,” he said, “that I don’t know where we are, as well as why I am here.”

Oh. Blair resisted the urge to glance at Alice. Even after Dexter Vex’s odd reaction a year ago, somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that the Dead Men might not _know_. At least Shudder didn’t seem put out by that. He just stood there, waiting with a sort of patience that went far beyond the word _patience_. It was the sort of patience owned by a mountain, or a boulder. It just _was_.

“Right,” said Alice, clearing her throat. “Tír Tairngire, built nineteen-twelve, combined city of mortals and faeries—sorry, sorcerers—hidden behind dimensional shields. Initial population was comprised of mortal refugees and homeless, and a good chunk of the Children of the Spider and other residents from Roarhaven.”

For a long moment Shudder didn’t say anything. He just stared into the distance without a change in his expression. Was he angry that he hadn’t known before now? Was he going to explode? The legends said Shudder’s wrath was devastating and inescapable.

Then Shudder’s gaze focussed on them again and he asked, “Numbers?”

“Confirmed seventeen,” Alice leapt in before Blair could. “They killed the border-guards on duty and have left guards on the dimensional bridge leading into Roarhaven. Most have taken the Central Tower—” She pointed up to the tower peering over the trees. “—and Governor Chiabuoto’s office. Others are still holding Éire Tower and Madam Mist’s office, to control the Children of the Tír.” She pointed toward the district. “We can’t get into the tower.”

“Why?”

And this was the real reason Shudder had been called. “They have a giant,” Blair explained, and tried not to feel underwhelming, or as though he was making excuses. “We can handle him alone, technically, but if we engage him his movements will damage the foundations of the district, and if Éire sinks it’ll damage the rest of the districts too. We can’t afford that.”

“You need him taken down fast,” said Shudder, and Blair nodded wordlessly. “Very well,” said Shudder. “Your magic?”

“I … don’t have any,” Blair explained, and tried not to feel abashed either. He stood up straighter and looked Shudder in the eye, and said more firmly. “I don’t have any. But I don’t need any. The weapons we’ve got work on any faery just the same, and they disrupt magic to boot.”

Shudder watched him for a moment and then shifted his gaze to Alice. He didn’t seem to blink, Blair realised. _Did_ he blink? Was it possible for a man to just not blink?

“And you?” Shudder asked.

“Elemental,” she said promptly.

Shudder was silent for a moment more, and then nodded. “There is a man in my Hotel. Within the Hotel he is under my protection. Do not harm him or contain him, or I will be obliged to exact the same pound of flesh from you.” Blair saw Alice swallow hard. “If he leaves the Hotel, follow him. Call who you must to secure reinforcements. If he threatens you or the citizens under your care, do what you must to defend them. Do not take him lightly. He looks old, but he’s a killer.”

“Yes, sir,” said Alice meekly.

“Should I—” Blair put a hand on his rifle, but Shudder raised a hand to stop him.

“He’s familiar enough with weapons that one of such size will put him on his guard,” he said. “Even sorcerers have scant defence against firearms. But he won’t know what Officer Owens’ magic is. It will give her the advantage.”

He went back into the Hotel. Blair and Alice looked at each other awkwardly until he came out again, carrying the largest double-barrelled shotgun Blair had ever seen. It was one of those old-fashioned Midwestern types that looked like it belonged on a set of wheels. Shudder looked at him. “You’re with me.”

Then Shudder turned and walked in the direction of Éire District, and Blair spared one glance at Alice before hurrying after him.

“Have we a time-limit?” Shudder asked without looking to see if Blair was keeping up. He had very long strides.

“Um—” Blair checked his watch. “In thirteen minutes and twenty—fifteen seconds we need to be assaulting the insurgents in Madam Mist’s office.”

“How far to the tower?”

“Usually, half an hour,” said Blair, and then added, trying not to sound argumentative, “but if we go to Central’s tower instead we can take a circle up to the Deck and use one of the air-ferries on standby, and we’ll get there in five minutes.”

Without a word Shudder turned toward Central’s tower, and Blair had to jog to keep up with his long steps. “We’ll just have to keep out of range,” he said. “The insurgents are defending the Deck and the giant … broke a few buildings to make throwing-rocks. He’s got the whole ground of the district covered.”

“No,” said Anton. “We’ll go fast and inside the giant’s reach. Protect yourselves from his weapons however you must, but I need to get close enough to take the ground.”

“I thought—” Blair stopped, then decided the question was a fair one tactically speaking. “I thought gists were long-range.”

Shudder looked at him again, and Blair hoped that little twinkle was amusement. “They are. But you will have forces waiting to enter the tower once the giant is gone. They will need to be safely behind me if I am required to release the gist.”

“… But—” Blair stopped again, then resisted the urge to growl at himself and finished, “but we’ll be going in on the Deck. It’ll be two-hundred feet over your head.”

“Yes,” said Shudder, and that was _all_ he said, and Blair felt the dual thrill of horror and excitement. He was going to see one of the Dead Men in battle. He was going to see a _gist_.

… He really wasn’t sure if he ought to be excited at all about that fact.

It took less than a minute to get up on Deck. The precinct had been turned out to defend it in case the insurgents tried to bust out, but they seemed content to stay in the governor’s office for the time being. No one gave Blair or Shudder a second look until they arrived at the ferry waiting specifically for them and Shudder stepped on without even a hesitation or glance downward. _Then_ Blair heard the snatches of whispers taken by the breeze, but not the words for them.

The crew took the ferry across in quick order. The air was devoid of anyone but public servants; no ferries were run except those collecting around the other districts’ Decks, prepared to assault Éire’s tower, and no gliders were in the air. It felt … empty. Or would have, if they weren’t in such a hurry and lashed by the wind every moment.

“Incoming on the portside,” shouted the deckhand, and the ferry swerved and a piece of debris bigger than Blair’s head shot past them, arcing slowly and falling back toward the water.

“Take me down,” said Shudder. He didn’t _shout_ ; he just _said_ it, and his voice seemed to carry to every corner of the ferry. Blair went to the rail and watched the giant, Brobding someone had called him, bend to pick up another piece of debris he’d smashed out of some of the buildings on the ground. Some of them he’d done so with his head—like the dome as he’d entered.

“Bloody bastard,” Blair muttered. The dome had been a work of _art_.

The ferry was lowering, but its timber and sails were groaning as they did, fighting the wind and the gravity in its graceful descent toward the ground. Shudder put his foot on the rail and Blair stared. Surely he didn’t mean to _jump_?

“Right,” said Shudder, and they caught an airstream and slipped right, and Brobding’s latest piece of ammo sailed past.

Still they sank toward the ground, until they were less than ten feet over the giant’s head and he could have reached them if he’d jumped. He glared up at them and bent his knees and then Shudder was gone from the ferry. Blair leaned wildly down and saw him collide heel-first with the bridge of Brobding’s nose, and the giant bellowed and shrank back, cupping his hand to the blood gushing down his face.

Shudder braced himself against Brobding’s nose and his shoulder and hefted the shotgun he’d been holding this whole time, and blew a hole in the giant’s head. The pellets came out the other side in a spew of blood and brains, and Brobding keeled over backwards.

Shudder rode him down and calmly stepped off the giant’s body onto the grass, and looked up at the drifting ferry. “ _Now_ ,” he said, “you may assault the tower.”

 

Alice stood nearly at attention outside the Midnight Hotel, watching its door. She didn’t know who the man inside was, except that he was old, but _Anton Shudder_ had given her a direct order and by God she was going to obey. She could hear the giant’s roar in the distance, but didn’t look around.

There was movement inside the Hotel and Alice tensed, and then a man came out. He _was_ old, and he carried himself like some of the oldest and most snobbish Children, but there was something cold in his eyes that Alice had never seen before. It made a chill run down her spine when he looked at her. 

He laughed bitterly. “So much for his reputation. He put you here to guard me, didn’t he?”

“I’m here to guard the city,” Alice said stoutly. “I’ve nothing to do with Mr Shudder’s hotel.”

“Are you,” he said, looking her up and down, and curling his lip. “And how do you plan to do that?”

Alice opened her mouth to answer, but someone seized her from behind. Her elbow jerked back into their solar plexus and they grunted but didn’t release her, and then pain erupted in her neck and all the strength ran out of her limbs.


	11. Caught in the web

Erskine sat in his armchair and watched Syc sneer at him from across the room. His face hurt and his lip throbbed where it had split, but it was a far cry better than broken limbs, crippling blows or poison. The only reason the Torment hadn’t resorted to the last yet was because he had no idea which poisons would work on Erskine anymore.

No one was talking. The Torment wasn’t much of a talker, and he didn’t like others to talk when he was leading. Erskine wasn’t about to prod him by chattering on, even though the silence made him restless. Adaeze and her two closest aides were also in the room, waiting and watching. He’d already caught her eye. She knew they had something in the works.

Four hostages. Five residents of Roarhaven in the room. The Torment, at the very least, could turn into a spider—Erskine couldn’t be sure whether Syc had learned that particular technique yet. Some of the others were Children he hadn’t known as well as the rest. He didn’t know their capabilities.

Five insurgents. Four hostages. He was the only one with battle experience and he was currently wearing magic-binding restraints. Bad odds.

The Torment came into the room and stood before Erskine, and looked down at him. Erskine looked up calmly. His phone buzzed, and they all ignored it.

“I admit,” said the Torment, “I’m surprised you gave yourself up so readily.”

“You gave me incentive,” Erskine pointed out.

“Yes,” said the Torment, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “You’ve always coddled the people to whom you feel beholden. How like you, to think your subjects can’t care for themselves.”

“I’m sorry,” said Erskine, and the Torment barked out a laugh and leaned close, an old man whose face was weathered by bitterness.

“You’ve no idea what you’re even saying sorry for,” he said in a low voice. “Nor would I accept it even if you did.”

Erskine nodded. “Actually, I do. I’m sorry you’re such a twisted, bitter caricature that you can’t even crack open your closed mind enough to seize the opportunity for truly earned respect from others.”

The Torment’s face twisted with a snarl and in a quick lightning movement he struck Erskine in the face. Erskine was thrown back into the armchair, his head ringing, and was barely able to catch his breath before Torment seized him by the throat and leaned into him, constricting his airway.

“I am going to kill you,” said the Torment, his eyes glittering, “and if you do not let me, I will kill those around you, one by one, before your very eyes—and then I will kill you anyway.”

Erskine choked and arched his back to try and pull away, gripping the Torment’s wrist. His head roared. He tried to speak and the Torment let up just enough to allow him to do so.

“Now who’s underestimating my subjects?” Erskine whispered, and his phone vibrated on the table, and there came a thud and a shriek from outside. The Torment whipped around and Erskine kicked at his legs, and the Torment crashed to the floor. Erskine doubled over, gasping for his breath. Syc lunged at him but Adaeze yanked a pistol from the holster hidden under her desk and fired it at him, and he staggered against the wall.

She spun to fire at Hieronymus Deadfall as he leapt at her, but he seized one of her aides and the flash of energy struck the man in the chest instead. One of the nameless Children went for Adaeze, and then the wall opened up and China stepped out, and threw up her hands with a bloom of light. The Child went flying into one of the other insurgents and they both collapsed in a heap against the opposite wall.

Erskine pushed himself upright but the Torment was back on his feet, shaking and growing, his back splitting to give way to the bristling black spines of a spider.

“Oy, Ravel!” Digger shouted and lobbed the manacle keys at him, and Erskine twisted to catch them as the Torment swept the armchair aside.

The doors burst open and Syc attacked Modeste as she entered, but his blades swept through her without catching and he overbalanced with a surprised expression. A moment later a rifle-blast caught him in the chest from the office outside, throwing him back onto the floor, where he rolled to keep from being stepped on by the spider his own ally had become.

It was chaos. Erskine only caught glimpses of Deadfall dropping the aide he held hostage so he could stare at China; of Adaeze yanking her aides behind her desk; of Digger swearing up a storm while she ducked back into the wall and yanked one of the other Children with her. He was too busy dodging the Torment’s legs and mandibles, and trying to fit the key into the lock without being eaten.

Rifle-blasts came through the doorway and struck the Torment’s side, and he shrieked and tore the doors off their hinges. Erskine finally got his manacles unlocked and dropped them and jerked up his hands, and the wall crunched as the spider slammed up against it. The Torment writhed and the next moment he was vomiting tiny spiders all over the place, and Erskine cursed and threw fire at them, and the Torment shrieked again.

“Don’t burn down the bloody office, yah bloody faery!” Digger hollered.

“And here I thought Adaeze was after a renovation,” Erskine muttered, and took cover behind the overturned armchair as the Torment spat webs at him. Syc lunged at him from the floor, his blades flashing and fury in his eyes, but Xun whipped through the doorway and slammed rifle-blast after rifle-blast into his side until the Child fell still.

Erskine had another problem: the webs surrounded the armchair, and even when Erskine threw fire at them, they resisted burning. He jerked from their clutching strands and then the armchair went spinning away and Erskine went tumbling, and he looked up into the Torment’s mandibles. Blue light seared the spider’s hair and with a wail the Torment recoiled, and Erskine pushed himself up.

“It seems,” said China, suddenly at his side, “that you’ve a pest problem, Ravel.”

She smiled radiantly and Erskine’s heart skipped a beat. With a growl he slammed up his hands but the Torment barrelled through the wall of air, and they dodged to either side. The Torment was too big, even for a large office like this one. Bev O’Connell’s team were on entry—between them they’d be able to handle the rest of the insurgents. But Erskine needed to get the Torment out of the office, or else he’d kill someone just by accident.

With any luck it would be China. Erskine could live with that.

There was one quick way. Erskine threw fire at the Torment while he was distracted by China zipping around like one of Rover’s Energizer bunnies, and the spider turned toward him and lunged. Erskine threw himself backward over Adaeze’s desk, rolled and then shoved the air. The desk shot across the floor and collided with the Torment, and in an explosion of glass he rocketed out the window.

Webs shone in the sunlight and Erskine hurriedly rolled, but they caught on his legs and yanked him toward the window. He caught a glimpse of China throwing out blades of blue light, cutting through the strands caught on the windowsill. The Torment’s grasp on the tower broke and pulled Erskine along, and suddenly he was freefalling. He breathed evenly, timed his spin, and shot fire at the web before the Torment could use it to tug him closer.

Both of them plummeted, surrounded by glass and debris. Erskine put out his hands and felt the air vibrating his fingers. He pushed with one hand and pulled with the other, and managed to halt his spin, and shoved at the air beneath him to slow his speed. He saw the Deck under him, saw the people on it pointing and scattering. The Torment was a little below him, throwing webs at the side of the tower. Each one of them broke, but they were slowing him too.

Erskine breathed, counted, and at the last moment blasted air toward the Deck, enough to cushion his fall. He heard it crack under the force and the blow rattled his bones, but when the cushion collapsed a moment later he hit the ground only jarringly. His ears rang. He heard people shouting and rolled over with a groan, and saw the Torment heave himself to his many feet.

Behind the Torment Erskine saw Anton leap from an air-ferry and toss something underhanded like a bowling ball, and Erskine reached for the air and yanked. The Torment leapt and Daisy slid into Erskine’s waiting hands, and he heaved up the shotgun and blew off the spider’s head.

The recoil cracked Erskine’s shoulder back into the cobblestone and the pain took his breath away. A moment later, so did the spider corpse falling on top of him. He lay there in dazed agony, listening to one of the ferry captains barking orders to a couple of crews to get the Torment’s body off him.

It lifted just enough for Anton to pull him out from under it, and Erskine cried out when the pain shot all the way down his shoulder and into his chest. Weakly he hit Anton’s arm with his spare hand. “Daisy? You had to give me _Daisy_?”

“She was all I had,” said Anton, taking Daisy from Erskine’s slack grip.

“You and Ghastly are the only ones who can use her without blowing off your own arms!” Erskine closed his eyes and put his head down and groaned. “Is it broken?”

“No, just dislocated,” said Anton. He put his knee on Erskine’s chest to ensure he stayed flat and then tugged, steadily and slowly, on his arm. Erskine screamed and tried to buck and couldn’t, and then the socket popped back into place and the pain dulled instantly to an ache.

“You know,” Erskine wheezed, “we do have really good doctors hereabouts.”

“And then they would have made you stay in bed,” Anton said, “and you’d have killed someone wanting to get out and be involved in the aftermath. Now you can claim all you had was bruising.”

“No doctor who sees Daisy would believe that,” Erskine grumbled, but he was smiling as Anton heaved him to his feet. He caught his balance, a little unsteadily, and let himself be shooed away from the impact site by precinct officers, and then glanced around. Blair Dempsey was hovering nearby with his phone to his ear, but with eyes the size of saucers. China Sorrows landed lightly on the Deck from having stepped out of the window, sigils glowing under her skirt. Ferry crews and precinct officers were in action all over the Deck, cordoning off the crash area and securing the Torment’s body. A medical team was already hurrying out from inside the tower. So was an emergency sigil-masonry crew.

“Report,” said Erskine as Blair disconnected his call. His heart was still pounding. The adrenaline should keep him upright for a while yet.

“The governor’s office is secure, sirs,” said Blair, standing rigid and just short of saluting. “Two insurgents dead, the rest contained.”

“As are those in Éire Tower,” said Madam Mist softly, approaching from around the Torment’s bulk. Erskine hadn’t even seen her disembark from Anton’s ferry. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and the hem of her dress was splattered with something dark, but she looked uninjured herself.

“Is everyone alright?” he asked.

“Portia is dead,” said Mist impassively, but it was that particular sort of impassiveness that Erskine knew hid regret. That meant Mist had been the one who killed her.

“I’m sorry,” Erskine said quietly.

“She was a threat to the city,” said Mist, “and I swore long ago to protect this city.”

“How selfless,” said China, stepping lightly around the cracks between the cobbles and approaching the safe zone. Mist turned toward her, her mouth turning down, and for a moment Erskine was captivated by the sight of them side-by-side. They might have been sisters—or half-sisters, at least. They were both tall and slim and assured; their hair was long and black and luminous. But China’s eyes were light and Mist’s were dark; China’s skin pale, while Mist was swarthy.

“Hardly,” said Mist quietly, meeting China’s gaze and holding it. China’s smile didn’t fade, but Erskine saw her expression flicker, and enjoyed it, and took a deep breath to shake off his surprise.

“Madam Mist, meet China Sorrows,” he said pleasantly. “China, meet Madam Mist, representative for Ireland.”

“Representative where?” China asked, lifting an eyebrow. Erskine might have answered, but then fire and debris lit the air and the whole city quaked and threw them all to the ground.


	12. Sleeping on the job

Dexter rolled over with a groan and put out his hand to find his phone and stop it from playing _The Cellblock Tango._

“’Lo?” he grunted into the receiver.

“Are you still _asleep_?” Tanith asked.

“Not anymore.” Dexter yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“You do realise it’s past nine, right?”

Dexter bolted upright and then put his head in his hand with a groan when it spun dizzily. Someone by his side mumbled and pulled the pillow over their heads, and Dexter glanced down to find he was in Hopeless’s bed, in Hopeless’s office, and Hopeless was sprawled facedown next to him.

“Vex? You there?”

“I’m here,” Dexter mumbled, wiping grit out of his eyes. “So’s Hopeless. What have you got?”

He could hear Fletcher bragging in the background, and then the teen’s voice muffled, like Tanith had turned away. “I looked into a few of Chabon’s previous clients and transactions, and we’ve got enough that nobody at the Sanctuary should complain about arresting him if we have to.”

“That’s good.” Dexter wondered whether he had time to go interrogate Scapegrace like he’d planned before, at some point he couldn’t quite remember, falling into Hopeless’s bed. “Spoken to the others yet?”

“Sure,” said Tanith. “Ghastly and Saracen. Haven’t spoken to Rover, and I can’t get hold of Erskine or Shudder.”

“Rover went shopping for disguises, I can get him,” said Dexter, and then frowned. “You should be able to contact the others. We’re not doing much today, other than the obvious.” Erskine would be in the Tír, but that didn’t prevent phone contact.

“Their mobile providers say they’re out of range and the Hotel’s number isn’t registering as existing.”

A trickle of foreboding travelled down Dexter’s back, and without moving the pillow off his head Hopeless reached out and took his wrist, and squeezed it. “They both have international roaming, and the Hotel landline can be accessed anywhere.”

“Right,” said Tanith, “so why does it seem like their phones aren’t on the network?”

“Nothing good.” Dexter swung his legs off the bed with a groan and squeezed Hopeless’s hand back. “Give me ten minutes to deal with Descry’s migraine and I’ll see what I can do.”

“See you soon.”

They both disconnected and Dexter glanced at Hopeless, and Hopeless peered back at him from beneath the pillow, his eyes lined with pain.

“Is there any reason _you_ know why they’d be out of contact?” Dexter asked softly, keeping his mind as blank as he could with a mental wash of surf on a non-existent shore.

_‘If something went wrong with the Tír’s comm tower,’_ Hopeless sketched onto Dexter’s forearm with his fingers.

“And the Hotel? That’s _never_ been out of contact, not since Anton installed the landline.”

Hopeless’s mouth turned down and he massaged a ‘no’ into Dexter’s wrist.

“So it’s safe to assume the same person who’s been trying to stop us from recovering Skulduggery is at work again.”

_‘Yes.’_

“What about you? Erskine said you slept last night. Did your head not get the memo?”

His flippancy was rewarded with a brief rise of Hopeless’s mouth, and then he sighed and lifted a shoulder in a shrug. Dexter squeezed his hand. “I’ll go get Melissa and see if you’re cleared for some medication. You might have to settle for greeting Skulduggery like a long-lost son after the fact.”

As debilitating as the migraines were, Dexter preferred them over Hopeless being made outright insane. The Faceless Ones could have done so much worse. They’d been lucky.

Dexter slid off the bed and Hopeless burrowed back under his pillows, and wasn’t much more than a lump in the shadows of the bed when Dexter left, yawning and running a hand through his hair. His boots were even still on. He seemed to recall China giving him a mug of coffee in the middle of the night; what had made him go down so quickly?

“You’re getting old, Vex,” he muttered, straightening his clothes as he made his way through the Sanctuary toward the Administrator’s office. He caught Melissa coming the other way, looking tired and distracted, but her whole face lit up when she saw him and smiled. He couldn’t help but smile back. “Good news from that appointment, I take it? How are you feeling?”

“Good news, yes, and exhausted,” said Melissa, tugging on the hair she had obviously put in a bun so she could neglect doing anything with it and yet unable to keep from smiling. “Steph got off to school, but if her teachers are expecting anything out of her today they’re idiots. What about the men who broke into our house?”

“I haven’t had the chance to interrogate the one we arrested yet,” Dexter admitted, “but the other one, I can say with certainty, isn’t going to make a return visit.”

“Good,” said Melissa, “or else I’d have to kick him in the balls.”

Dexter winced. “As much as I’d love to see that, you’d be better off kicking him in the knee or stomping on his foot, or jabbing him in the eye or the throat. The balls just aren’t _quite_ as debilitating as the movies want you to think.”

“You men are advertising yourselves falsely,” Melissa grumbled. “Did you just come from the Grand Mage’s office?”

“Yes, and Descry is curled up under his pillows. If he’s clear for some medication, we’d all appreciate it a lot if you can help him with that. I need to interrogate someone before I go out for brunch.”

“I’ll look in on him,” Melissa promised, and they parted ways—Melissa toward Hopeless’s office and Dexter toward the Gaol. When he got there Weeper was in attendance, perennially as he was, half asleep on his chair. At least he had his eyes open—that was an improvement.

“Wakey-wakey.” Dexter snapped his fingers and Weeper snapped upright.

“Immawake,” he mumbled.

“I hope so,” said Dexter, wondering whether Hopeless had really been unable to find anyone capable of doing the same job more efficiently or if he’d just felt sorry for the man. Come to think of it, why hadn’t _Guild_ gotten rid of him yet? Dexter shook his head. “I’m here to interrogate a prisoner. Scapegrace. I brought him in this morning.”

“Scapegrace. Right.” Weeper nodded. “I remember him.” Dexter chose not to mention that Weeper had been asleep at the time, and had barely woken up long enough to blearily write down Scapegrace’s name on the ledger. In fact he chose not to say anything at all as Weeper led him down between the rows and rows of cells and catcalling prisoners, until they reached a specific cell.

A specific, empty cell.

Dexter stared at it for a long moment and then turned to Weeper and said, very carefully, “It’s empty.”

“It’s not meant to be,” said Weeper, looking puzzled and nervous, and throwing him sidelong glances. “This is the number of the cell on the ledger.”

“It’s _empty_ ,” Dexter repeated, more flatly than before. “Why, Weeper, is this cell empty?”

Weeper was beginning to look distinctly distressed. “I don’t know! There’s nothing on the ledger! He wasn’t released!”

Dexter gazed at him for another few seconds, long enough to make him start to really sweat, and then turned and strode out of the gaol. He went back to the Grand Mage’s office, where Melissa was taking an empty glass back from Hopeless and Hopeless was at least sitting up, if holding his head. They both looked as he entered without asking permission.

“I’d recommend looking into some stronger locks,” said Dexter to Melissa. “Scapegrace is gone and there’s no record of who released him.”

Melissa blinked. Hopeless rubbed his forehead.

“Oh,” said Melissa. “That seems a bit coincidental.”

“Just a bit,” Dexter said dryly, and then turned to the mind-reader to ask whether, by fantastic chance, he’d managed to hear who had released a prisoner while he’d been in excruciating pain.

_‘No,’_ Hopeless signed.

Dexter sighed. “Melissa, permission to steal your daughter from school so she can help me investigate who, exactly, might have been able to sneak past Weeper’s admirable defences while I go to a prior engagement?”

“I don’t know how much help she’ll be,” said Melissa, “but at least she might achieve her goal of being sleep-deprived.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You’re paying for her summer schooling if she needs to make up all her classes.”

 

By the time recess came around Valkyrie was feeling awake enough to be mildly hungry, so she forced herself to eat even though she didn’t really want to. Also, her dad had made her lunch and for some reason he considered jellybeans on sweet crackers to be a suitable midmorning snack.

“Ew,” said Kara.

“Ew,” Valkyrie agreed.

“Trade you,” said Natalie, holding out her tiny bag of crisps, so they swapped and Valkyrie ate the contents of the packet within two handfuls.

“You’re weird,” she mumbled with her mouth full, watching Natalie eat her jellybean sandwiches with every evidence of enjoyment. “I thought dancers needed to watch their weight.”

“I’ll burn it off before the day’s over,” Natalie said with a shrug. “So Gail is the daughter of the lead Cleaver trainer, and you’re apprenticed to the Dead Men—” Kara squeaked. “—as a detective, right?”

“Right,” said Valkyrie.

“And when you say ‘apprenticed’ you mean with a contract and everything, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re getting _paid by the Sanctuary_ to look at all their files of past crimes and things, right?”

“Right.”

“I want your life.”

Valkyrie thought of the Baron, and the massacre, and watching Hopeless dissolve into a basket of screams because he was reading a demi-god’s mind, and Rover as a still and silent lump of rock. “Not really, you don’t.”

“What _happened_ in the Sanctuary?” Kara asked, picking at her sandwich. “Why’s Gail …” She waved her hand, searching for the right words.

“Turning into a hermit?” Valkyrie suggested. Should she say something? She didn’t want Kara and Natalie’s opinion of Gail to change. It really wasn’t her right to talk about it. But at the same time, Valkyrie felt too tired to hide it as if it was a secret Gail should be ashamed over. The Administrator had been a traitor, and Gail hadn’t _meant_ to do what she did. Valkyrie didn’t really want to keep on pretending it was something Gail should have to hide. “She killed a person. A bad guy, yeah, and it was by accident, but now it’s like she thinks she’s evil or something.”

They both stared at her and Valkyrie felt a trickle of foreboding even through the tiredness, but in the end all Kara said was, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Actually, I think she was ohing at me,” said Dex, and Valkyrie flopped back to look up at him from upside-down. He waggled his fingers at her. “Hi.”

Valkyrie frowned. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“I’m going to be a terrible, awful, bad mentor and take you out of school,” said Dex, and all at once some of Valkyrie’s tiredness lifted. Then she frowned again.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t I the one who _wanted_ to come to school?”

“Yes, which means we’ve been altogether too responsible at you and I need to fix that,” said Dex. She lifted her hand and he took it and brought her smoothly to her feet, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders when she staggered. “That, and I need you to take a line of investigation for me.”

Impatiently Valkyrie brushed her hair out of her face and craned her head back to look at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” said Dex, and even though his tone was light she saw, suddenly, that there wasn’t much humour in his face, and his eyes were focussed. “A bunch of things all came up at once. I know you wanted to talk to your friend, but—”

“She’s not here today,” said Valkyrie, “and she didn’t go home last night. She left a note for Macha saying she was with me, but she wasn’t.”

Dex paused and his eyes flickered, and she knew he’d put something together, but she also knew he wouldn’t say what it was in front of civilians. He nodded. “Alright. Then I’m not sorry, and I’m also not going to bother checking out through reception. There isn’t any time.”

Valkyrie’s stomach sank. “It’s something to do with that case you were on, isn’t it?”

“What I need you to do? No. Maybe. It’s probably tangentially related, but a bunch of _other_ things came up which _are_ related, and that means we need someone intelligent to take over the things that _aren’t_ , and that means you. Ladies.”

Dex bowed at Kara and Natalie. Kara was so red she looked sunburned and she couldn’t seem to lift her gaze further than their knees, and Natalie was staring with her mouth open. Valkyrie grinned. “I probably won’t be making club tonight, sorry. See you guys later.”

“See you,” said Natalie, a touch dazedly, as they turned and walked quickly off the school grounds.


	13. Bring me the head of Skulduggery Pleasant

Tanith paced in an alley, checking her phone. It was getting very close to ten o’clock and she still hadn’t heard back from—just about anyone. Tanith didn’t like not hearing back from people with whom she’d made plans. That defeated the purpose of making _plans_.

For the fourth time since she’d spoken to Dexter she called his cell, and this time he picked up. “I’m late, I know.”

“Where are you?” Tanith demanded anyway, even though he sounded harassed.

“I can’t get hold of Erskine or Anton,” he said, “but I’ll be right there with Rover, if you can send Fletcher into the Sanctuary.”

“Ghastly and Saracen aren’t here yet either.”

“They’re not?” Dexter sounded startled.

“No,” said Tanith, “they’re not, and I don’t know why, but I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I,” Dexter muttered, and Tanith heard Rover squawking in the background. “Send Fletcher over and give them another call. If they don’t answer, send me a text and we’ll drop in on our way.”

“I thought the Dead Men were meant to be organised,” Tanith muttered, and the last thing she heard before he hung up was Dexter laughing very sardonically. She sighed, glanced around for Fletcher to send him to pick up Dex and Rover, and then called Ghastly’s shop.

 

Ghastly’s phone rang for the third time in half an hour. A moment later there was crunch and the ringtone cut off abruptly, and Ghastly winced from where he sat huddled behind the sofa. Across the room, behind a stack of fabric, Saracen signed, _‘Tanith?’_

_‘How do I know?’_ Ghastly signed back, with an additional expletive. _‘Why didn’t you see this coming?’_

_‘It’s an eight-armed octopus man,’_ Saracen motioned wildly. _‘How could I possibly see_ this _coming?’_

_‘It’s a shapeshifter. There’s no such thing as eight-armed octopus men.’_

_‘So he didn’t have all those arms when you measured him, then?’_

The eight-armed octopus man grunted and Ghastly heard another rack of fabric clatter to the floor, and buried his face in his hands. How did this happen? He’d just been enjoying a morning of tailoring before walking head-first into a dimension of Faceless Ones to rescue his best friend who’d murdered his mother during a five-year stint as a supervillain, and now he had an eight-armed octopus man tearing apart his shop.

_‘We can’t just sit here,’_ he signed.

_‘Why not?’_ Saracen signed back. _‘Dexter, Rover and Fletcher are going to show up in a minute.’_

_‘Yes, because I want to never live this down when they rescue me from an eight-armed octopus man in my own shop_.’

Ghastly could hardly bear the thought of how long it would take for the novelty of _that_ to wear off. Ghastly levered himself up and peered over the sofa, and a moment later had to duck as a tentacle swept over his head and collided with the wall. Drywall showered down on him and Ghastly shoved the sofa with the aid of the air, and he heard the eight-armed octopus man grunt as it struck him.

Saracen came from the side swinging a roll of some of Ghastly’s most expensive fabric, and the tailor cut off a groan as a flailing tentacle plucked it out of his hands, covering it in slime and rendering it completely unusable.

“Use the bloody linens!” he shouted, yanking a pair of scissors toward him and using them to stab a tentacle whipping at him. The eight-armed octopus man howled wordlessly in pain. The partial transformation had changed the man’s vocal chords too much to make conversation, and Ghastly couldn’t quite decide whether that was a benefit or not. On one hand, no taunts. On the other, no information.

“Which ones are the linens?” Saracen wondered out loud, and this time Ghastly _did_ groan, right before a tentacle came out of nowhere and slammed him into another one of his racks, and rolls of fabric came down on him. He pushed them aside and saw Saracen waving a pair of shears wildly, and making some headway until two tentacles plucked him off his feet and the shears almost daintily out of his hands, and then threw him into Ghastly just as Ghastly got to his feet. They both went tumbling.

“What the—”

Ghastly rolled a moaning Saracen off him and saw Fletcher’s eyes widen and the teleporter, and Rover, vanish. Dexter whirled and his hand came up and inside a second he charged and fired a beam of energy that dazzled Ghastly’s vision, accompanied by the unfortunate smell of cooked octopus.

“That worked a little better than I would have thought,” Dexter said, and Ghastly blinked away after-images to see the eight-armed octopus man reduced to a pair of bloody legs slumping to the floor. He looked around his shop and groaned again at the organs, tentacles, slime and blood covering every piece of fabric in his shop.

Fletcher reappeared, looking sheepish, with Rover in tow. Grinning, Rover leaned down to pick something out of Saracen’s hair and show it to them. “Look, Saracen! Calamari!”

Ghastly slumped back against the wall. “I hate you all.”

 

Tanith whirled as she heard the sound of Rover laughing and feet hitting ground. Fletcher looked wild-eyed, Dexter looked torn between amusement and frazzle, and Ghastly and Saracen were covered in slime and bits of … something.

“Did you know there’s such a thing as eight-armed octopus men?” Fletcher asked her shakily.

Tanith blinked. “Fletcher,” she said slowly, “there’s no such thing as eight-armed octopus men.”

“Dex just blew one up.”

“I didn’t know he’d explode,” said Dexter, and he definitely sounded baffled. “Maybe it has something to do with the ink? Or … something? I don’t know, I don’t know anything about fish.”

“They’re not fish,” Ghastly growled, wiping gunk off his head, and Tanith covered her mouth so she didn’t laugh at the singed octopus ring that flopped to the ground. She still had to grin at him.

“So I guess you weren’t answering the phone just because you were mad at me, then.”

Ghastly looked at her and his face softened and he said, “I’d never be mad at you.”

It came out unexpectedly earnest, and he blushed, and Tanith felt her cheeks warm, and they both looked away.

“Aww, get a room already,” said Rover with the widest grin she’d ever seen, flicking away tears of mirth with a fingertip. He looked nothing like himself—he was wearing a padded jacket so he looked considerably heavier than he was, with flour in his hair and make-up strategically applied to make his face squarer and better-jowled.

Tanith cleared her throat and looked back at them. “Chabon will make us wait,” she said, “but he might already be here watching the café, so we shouldn’t be late.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean Rover,” Saracen muttered, miffed as he brushed uselessly at the stains in his shirt.

“Willing and able to serve.” Rover bowed with a flourish.

“We know,” Tanith and Ghastly said in stereo.

They had to change their plans a bit, since neither Ghastly nor Saracen had time to change and they were covered in calamari slime. Fletcher went back to the tailor’s to grab one of Ghastly’s hats, but that was all they could afford, so Ghastly loitered around an alley so he didn’t waste his disguise until they needed him and Saracen, looking irritable, went into the café to use the restrooms and vanished from easy sight within a minute.

Rover swaggered in and plonked himself down facing the door. Fletcher was beside the window, reading a comic and drinking a Coke and doing his best to be inconspicuous—not an easy feat with his hair. Tanith stationed herself at the bus-stop outside. So did Dexter, borrowing a newspaper to hide his face from casual view.

Chabon made them wait, which wasn’t a surprise, except that Rover was terrible at waiting. Luckily, so was the character he was playing. At ten-thirty Tanith heard him whining into the phone from outside the café, ending with a huffy, “You had _better_ be or I’ll be taking my business elsewhere and smearing yours all over the interwebs!”

Twenty minutes later an irritable-looking man with a briefcase walked into the café. Tanith watched them casually through the window, watched Rover gesture wildly, but she couldn’t tell whether his motions were affected for enthusiasm or anger with the way his whole face twisted as he spoke. She could tell that Chabon was irritated, but not so irritated as to give up on the sale—just enough to be annoyed by it.

He put the case on the table, Rover peered in with a suitably ‘oooh’ expression, and cheerfully handed over the money. Chabon rose and left, and the moment he did Dexter also rose and met him at the door with a pleasant smile.

Chabon hesitated and then forced a smile. “Hello, may I help you with something?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you can,” said Dexter, and produced a pair of handcuffs. “You’re under arrest for multiples counts of business-related fraud. If you tell me the truth about that skull and whether it’s real or not, I won’t even punch you in the face.”

Chabon was quick. He swung the suitcase full of money at Dexter.

Dexter was quicker. He blocked the suitcase with his forearm and punched Chabon in the face, and Chabon reeled back into the door and sank dazedly to the ground.

“Is it just me, or was that a lot easier than I thought it would be?” Tanith asked, coming to join Dexter as he handcuffed Chabon’s hands together.

“It was,” Dexter agreed with a frown.

“Um, guys?” Fletcher called, waving his hands and pointing to where Rover was sitting, very still, his hands in the open briefcase. “I think we have a problem.”

People were starting to look around, curious in the proceedings, gathering outside the café to watch a man get arrested. Dexter hauled Chabon to his feet and sat him back in his seat, and Tanith brought in the money, and Saracen came out of the restroom smelling much better, and they all looked at Rover.

Rover looked up at them and mustered a grin. “Hi.”

“Is that a _skull_?” someone whispered to their neighbour. Even the baristas were trying to spy without actively stopping feeding people their much-needed coffee.

Dexter closed his eyes. “Rover, are you molesting the skull?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Is there a reason you’re molesting the skull?”

“As a matter of fact, there is.”

“Who do I need to call?”

“Gracious, please. I’m be very graciously grateful for a Gracious right now, please.”

“Right.” Dexter turned to Fletcher. “Go collect Bespoke and get the car, and bring Gracious here on the double.”

“Um …” Fletcher glanced between them, looking confused.

“Snap to it, recruit!” Dexter barked, and Fletcher snapped up and probably stopped just short of teleporting, and hurried out of the café.

“What’s going on?” asked the café’s supervisor, a very nice-looking young lady with a nametag that read ‘Norma Gene’.

Saracen gave her his best dazzling smile. “Nothing to worry about. Just an investigation and arrest.”

“You broke my nose,” Chabon mumbled, pressing a wad of napkins to his bleeding nose.

“You broke my forearm,” Dexter countered.

“No, I didn’t.”

“No, but you threw a heavy suitcase at me. Suck it up. Who gave you the skull?”

Chabon’s eyes flickered. “I told you, I bought it—”

Dexter sighed. “Mr Chabon, I am having a very bad day. A day which started at three a.m. Do you really, _truly_ , want to make my day worse by lying to me? Yes? No? No is good. Who gave you the skull?”

For a second longer Chabon maintained his air of stubborn defiance. Then he deflated. “The woman I sold the other skull to.”

“And by ‘other skull’ you mean the Murder Skull,” said Tanith.

“They had a better price.”

“And gave you a skull in return?”

“She said it was a copy made years ago. She said it’d fool you for sure.”

“You didn’t bother to check it, did you?”

“I didn’t have time,” Chabon snapped, and pointed at Rover. “He called to harass me. You wouldn’t have known the difference if he hadn’t been so impatient.”

“Other than the fact that, you know, we set you up to begin with,” Dexter said dryly. His phone chimed and he glanced at it and saw a text from Gracious.

_SUP_

_Bomb,_ he texted back, and looked up again. “This woman,” he said, “did she happen to have different-coloured eyes and an American accent?” Chabon’s gaze flickered. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Dexter’s phone chimed again.

_Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh brt_

Dexter shoved his phone in his pocket and looked around. Some of the patrons were beginning to catch on that the man in make-up wasn’t sitting around with his hands on a skull for his health, in spite of the way Rover was murmuring ‘Om’ with his eyes closed. On the other hand, thanks to Rover murmuring ‘Om’ with his eyes closed, the majority seemed to think it was some kind of joke and kept glancing back, grinning. The manager was young enough that she didn’t seem quite sure what to do, but they weren’t disrupting anyone so she was apparently content to just keep an eye on them for now.

Luckily, thanks to Rover murmuring ‘Om’ and Gracious taking his time getting his act together, by the time the others arrived most people seemed to dismiss the situation as ‘weird but not endangering and probably not interesting anymore’.

Then Gracious bustled in wearing massive spectacles and a Dubliners T-shirt, and with his arms full of junk Dexter couldn’t tell was useful or a cover. “Where’s the skull?” he demanded, and plonked his arms full of stuff on the table and on Chabon’s hands. The con-artist yanked them back with a scowl. Gracious ignored him and leaned over Rover’s shoulder. “Oooh. The Murder Skull.”

“Om,” Rover hummed.

Donegan wandered in after Gracious, and Fletcher came in looking baffled after _him_.

“You couldn’t have made him look presentable?” Dexter asked, and Donegan shrugged.

“This _was_ presentable. Do you know how long he’s been trying to convince me to hunt down the Murder Skull?”

“Do you know how much of a travesty it is that this idiot _touched it_ before I could properly verify what it was?” Gracious grumbled, reaching into his bag of junk for a set of increasingly small lenses which he plonked over an eye. “The _Murder Skull_. There’s legends about this skull. There’s legends about _legends_ about this skull, and now it’s about to fall apart because your husband’s an idiot.”

“I didn’t _tell_ him to touch the skull,” Dexter muttered, keenly aware of all the eyes on him—mostly amused, some confused, a handful frankly disappointed.

“Om,” Rover hummed some more.

“I hate having to pick up after idiots,” said Gracious.

“Watch yourself, O’Callaghan, or I’ll strew your parts in the Liffey and you’ll have to pick up after _yourself_.”

“Don’t do that,” said Donegan. “Do that and he’ll settle lazily on the bottom, and _I’m_ the one who’ll have to pick him up.”

“I don’t suppose you lot can verify the skull now, instead of later, so I can process both skull and arrestee?” Tanith asked with edges of exasperation and amusement in her voice.

“Where would be the fun in that?” Donegan asked her. “By the way, I hear the world’s ending tomorrow. I don’t suppose you’re available?”

Tanith threw him a look that was _definitely_ amused. “That only worked for Saracen once.”

“Oy.”

“Well, if it worked for _him_ …”

“Oy!”

“Any luck?” Dexter asked Gracious over the sound of Rover’s ‘Ommmmm _’_. They were still being watched, though now it was mostly with morbid amusement. No one seemed to have cottoned on about the bomb. No one thought that anyone would act like such idiots if there _were_ a bomb. It was one of the reasons the Dead Men had been so effective.

Gracious looked up. “This is _definitely_ a skull,” he announced, and there were scattered laughs throughout the café. Dexter sighed.

“Can it be safely moved, or is it going to fall apart in my darling husband’s hands?”

“Oh. Just a tick.”

“Ommmm …”

Five minutes later Gracious pronounced the skull safe to move, but only as long as Rover put it down first because he was pretty sure mayonnaise threatened the integrity of the hundreds-of-years-old human remains. Rover pulled back his hands, Gracious slammed shut the case and cradled possessively to his chest, Donegan scooped up their gear and Tanith forced Chabon out of his chair.

Saracen turned to the café at large and bowed. “For your amusement and bemusement, _Dead Men on Thin Ice,_ coming to local parks and cafés near you.”

To a round of amused applause they hustled out of the café, down the street and around the corner where Ghastly was waiting for them.


	14. The plot thickens

“You can stop laughing any minute now,” Saracen grumbled, and maybe it was the fact that Valkyrie was tired, but she couldn’t. She bent inward, clutching Saracen’s arm and gasping for breath, and when Saracen finally got annoyed enough to yank his arm away she collapsed on the floor.

“I think she’s dead,” Tanith said solemnly, surveying Valkyrie with a grin.

“Thank the Lord,” Saracen muttered, turning around and crossing his arms. “Ghastly, why are you smiling? You’re the one still covered in calamari slime. What’s so funny about that?”

“She is,” Ghastly said with a shrug, pointing at Valkyrie slumped against the carpet of Hopeless’s office. She rolled over and grinned up at them all.

“Hi.”

“Wonderful,” Saracen muttered. “We’re relying on the sleep-deprived teen to investigate the Sanctuary for us while we go off and visit a dimension of evil gods.”

“Or we would be if we had the right skull,” said Dexter, and that wiped the smile off Valkyrie’s face in an instant. It also made her stomach lurch, and she got to her feet.

“Who took it?” she asked.

“Three guesses.”

“Davina Marr.”

“Bingo.”

“What next, then?” Fletcher asked.

“First we have to find out where Marr is hiding,” said Dexter.

“How?” Valkyrie demanded.

“I have no idea.”

“Fat lot of help you are.”

Everyone turned to Hopeless and he lifted an eyebrow at them. _‘What do you want_ me _to do?’_

“Command us, great and powerful commander,” Gracious said promptly and with a flourish. He motioned at the suitcase. “No, seriously, what am I meant to do with this? It’s a skull. It’s not even the _Murder_ _Skull_. It’s just an ordinary, uninteresting skull with a defused bomb in it.”

“Personally,” said Donegan, “I think we should blow it up.”

“You don’t know where Marr is?” Dexter asked Hopeless, and he shook his head. “Well, Marr has the skull, so you’re not helpful either.”

“And Gail,” Valkyrie put in. It may not have been quite as important as everything else, but as far as she was concerned, it was still important. Marr wanted Gail for a reason.

“And Gail. And we don’t know where either of them are. Maybe we can pick her up leaving the country—”

Hopeless shook his head.

“We won’t be able to find her if she does,” Tanith pointed out, but Hopeless shook his head again.

_‘Marr has left too many assets here. Gail. Whomever is employing her. She won’t go out of country, but she might send someone else.’_

“Do we know anyone working with her?” Valkyrie asked, right as Dexter started cursing.

“Someone broke Scapegrace out of the Gaol this morning,” he said, “while Descry was down with a migraine. Weeper has no idea who it was, the useless wretch, but I’ll bet it was Marr.”

“It can’t have been,” said Tanith. “It takes forever to get ID to walk around a foreign Sanctuary at will—unless you’ve got unexpectedly accommodating leaders,” she added with a quick smile at Hopeless. “But before then I needed Bliss to vet me every single time. She’d have been noticed if she came in.”

“Then it was someone inside the Sanctuary who did it for her,” said Saracen, and groaned. “I thought we were done with this whole traitor thing.”

“Ever get the feeling you’re missing something?” Gracious asked Donegan, and put up his hand. “Teachers? If you haven’t talked to everyone in the Sanctuary how would you _know_ she can’t have been in here and noticed by someone?”

“Because I said so,” said Saracen, and Gracious put down his hand with a nod.

“That makes sense.”

“I don’t like this,” said Dex, staring at Hopeless. Hopeless looked back. “What did you eat this morning? Did you ask anyone in the Sanctuary to get you anything?”

_‘Tea.’_

“Are you trying to control your Grand Mage’s caffeine intake, now?” Gracious demanded. “For shame.”

Dexter ignored him. “Where’s Bliss?”

Hopeless closed his eyes. _‘America.’_

“You think _Bliss_ is a traitor?” Donegan asked incredulously.

Hopeless shook his head and Dexter was still looking at him, and something fluttered in Valkyrie’s stomach. “Um, is that a good idea?”

“We’ve been training you well if you can already read minds,” said Saracen. “I don’t like this, Dex.”

“It’s not up to us,” said Dex, and he was _still_ gazing at Hopeless, and Hopeless was rubbing his temples, and finally he nodded.

“You’re the one who’s suggesting it, though,” Saracen objected stubbornly. “Why? Why’s it necessary? It’s practically an open _secret_ by now.”

“That’s the _problem_ ,” Dexter snapped, and ran his hands through his hair. “Too many of our enemies know. Vengeous knew, Batu knew, and whoever’s been working us in circles has to know too. Otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten Scapegrace out unknown and wouldn’t have been able to keep on top of us so easily. We can’t afford to keep our allies in the dark, Saracen.”

“We always have in the past,” said Saracen.

“They’re the Monster Hunters. We can trust them. Descry said yes.”

“In case you didn’t notice, Da—Descry’s a little bit compromised right now,” Saracen snapped back, and Valkyrie knew he had been about to say ‘Dad’. That said a lot about how rattled he was. The only time Valkyrie had ever heard him almost slip like that had been when they first met and Saracen had a Cleaver’s scythe buried in the floor of the Sanctuary’s lobby. And after the thing with the Faceless Ones, but that hardly counted.

“What do you want us to do, Saracen?” Dex demanded angrily. “Erskine and Anton aren’t even picking up and whoever’s trying to stop us from rescuing Skulduggery are running _rings_ around us. What else can we—”

“Well, I don’t know about anyone else but I think that’s enough yelling for one day,” said Rover, bouncing to his feet and putting himself between the two of them. He shook his finger mockingly at Saracen. “Don’t you know not to antagonise my wife, lover? Bad form.”

Saracen slapped his hand away, still looking furious. “So we’re just going to hand over Dead Men secrets at the drop of a hat, now?”

“Saracen,” Ghastly said quietly, “Tanith and Valkyrie already know, and the Monster Hunters are trustworthy. So’s Fletcher.”

“Fletcher’s a _little kid_.”

“Hey!”

“So’s Valkyrie.”

Valkyrie frowned. She knew the point Ghastly was trying to make, but it still rankled. “Hey.”

Ghastly gave her a quick glance but then focussed on Saracen again, speaking gently. “If this secret is coming out, and it _is_ , we’re better served getting as many allies as we can before it does.”

Saracen’s mouth tightened but he didn’t say anything. He just strode jerkily to the door and for a moment Valkyrie he was going to leave, but then he slapped the privacy sigil and then turned and crossed his arms, looking almost thunderous.

“Um.” Gracious waggled his fingers. “Is this anything like that _other_ other secret you weren’t telling us which we figured out on our own? Because if it is, I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Yes,” said Dex.

“No,” said Rover in the same moment. They looked at each other.

Ghastly sighed. “Both. Hopeless is a mind-reader.” Quickly he ran through what that meant, that it wasn’t at all like _other_ mind-readers, what people called ‘mind-readers’ just because they had no idea what it actually meant. Fletcher looked about as unnerved as Valkyrie remembered being, and he kept throwing glances at Hopeless, but he was relatively new to magic and didn’t understand how weird it actually was.

Gracious was the one doing the most staring, though. Like he was looking at an insect under glass. “You can hear what I’m thinking right now?” he asked with fascination, and Hopeless nodded, smiling wryly. “And now?” Another nod. “And—”

“At any given _moment_ , O’Callaghan,” Saracen snapped.

“So cool,” Gracious murmured.

“Um.” Donegan raised his hand. “Not to criticise your election process here, but is it wise having a mind-reader as the supreme commander of the Irish Sanctuary? Who else knows?”

“Bliss,” said Dexter. “The other Dead Men. A whole bunch of bad guys. And we didn’t exactly have much choice. Bliss said no, and Guild said yes a little too eagerly.”

“So you put a _mind-reader_ in charge?” Donegan glanced at Hopeless. “No offence.”

_‘None taken.’_

“You do realise that when every other nation in the world finds out about this, no one will ever trust Ireland ever again.”

“That’s why we’d like to make sure that every other nation in the world never finds out,” Saracen said.

“Bit late for that, don’t you think?”

Saracen straightened up, his jaw clenching, his eyes colder than Valkyrie had ever seen them. “Are you intending to _tell them_ , Bane?”

“I didn’t _say_ that—”

“Then what does it matter to you?”

Donegan glanced at Hopeless again, frustration and uncertainty all over his face. “Because, to be perfectly frank, it disturbs me that Ireland has a man capable of reading every single mind in the Sanctuary at any given moment in a position of overwhelming authority.”

“He’s _Descry Hopeless._ ”

“And Skulduggery was—”

Valkyrie didn’t see Saracen move. She just heard Donegan yelp and saw him go stumbling back, and Saracen was standing where he’d been, breathing hard and with his fists clenched, and for some reason near tears.

“Don’t,” he choked out. “Don’t you _dare_. I don’t care how you feel about something Descry can’t even change. I don’t care how you deal with it. But so help me, Bane, if you have _any_ intent of going out there and making trouble with this information, I will kill you right here.”

Gracious was holding Donegan up, staring at Saracen. Donegan was rubbing his chin, pale. Stiffly he pushed himself up and brushed himself off.

“I didn’t say I was going to _tell anyone_ ,” he said coldly. “Just that I don’t like the way you’re using your authority. Damn it, Rue, people _beyond_ Ireland respect you lot. Don’t abuse that respect.”

“It doesn’t abuse that respect to accept Descry as he is,” said Saracen. “He _can’t turn it off,_ Donegan, you numbskull. How do you think _that_ feels? How do you think it felt every time he attended a peace-treaty with Mevolent, Serpine _and_ Vengeous in attendance? How do you think it felt, standing in their presence and hearing every one of _their_ thoughts and experiencing every bit of _their_ evil—”

“Saracen,” Dex said quietly, putting a hand on his arm, and Saracen stopped, breathing hard. Donegan’s paleness had turned ashen, even a little bit green.

“I didn’t—” he started, and then cut himself off, his head jerking to the side as if he’d meant to look at Hopeless and then didn’t. He finished quietly, “I didn’t think of that.”

“Really?” Saracen said with heavy sarcasm. “I wouldn’t have guessed, what with how you were accusing the only man who actually understands people of taking over the world using his _authority_. Funnily enough, Bane, he didn’t need to be Grand Mage to do that, because funnily enough, with the power he has, _he could have done it at any time._ But he doesn’t. Why? Because he’s a better man or woman than anyone standing here in this room.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Ghastly, “think of it like this. Descry has no reason to hurt anyone, because if he does, he will feel that pain as if it’s his own. So it’s in his best interests to handle everyone with respect, no matter who they are.”

Donegan took a deep breath, ran his hands through his hair, and then nodded. “Alright. I can accept that. Alright.”

“Descry? Need a hug?” Rover was hovering behind Hopeless’s chair, and Hopeless lifted his head from his hands and gave him a weak smile. Rover nodded briskly. “Yep. Hug needed. Scootch.” He dragged the chair out and climbed onto Hopeless’s lap, and wrapped his arms around his neck, and reverse-cuddled him.

Donegan shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t—I mean, that wasn’t me, was it?”

“It was me as well,” said Saracen, and now he just sounded tired. “Strong emotions give him a headache. The main thing to remember is that, whatever you’re feeling, feel it. Don’t try to hide it. Hiding it just hurts Descry worse and it doesn’t work anyway, so there’s no point.”

“Um.” Fletcher put up his hand, more hesitantly than the Monster Hunters had. “How does any of this help us figure out where Marr is?”

“Because Marr knows about Descry’s magic,” said Dex. “She must, or she wouldn’t be able to work around it. She probably hasn’t even told her contact inside the Sanctuary.”

“Why hasn’t she?” Valkyrie asked with a frown.

“What?” Dexter looked at her with a blink.

“Well, I mean …” Valkyrie gestured lamely at Donegan. An idea was brewing, something she needed to talk out. The fact that everyone looked at her, waited for her to finish, actually wanted to listen to what she was going to say made a thrill run through her, but Valkyrie squashed it. “Why _wouldn’t_ she?” she asked. “She wants to distract us, right? The best way to do that would be to _tell_ people in the Sanctuary what Hopeless can do. It’d destabilise Ireland’s government.”

They all stared at her, and then stared at each other, and then back again.

“She’s right,” said Dexter at last. “Marr’s got no reason to keep it a secret. She might even have told Bisahalani by now.”

“Who?” Fletcher asked.

“The Grand Mage of the United States,” said Valkyrie. “So who in the Sanctuary would she have told? She couldn’t have told _everyone_.”

“Why not?” Tanith asked. “If they want to make Ireland unstable—”

“That’s not the way to do it,” Donegan said. “This kind of information—it could break Ireland. Marr won’t want to do that just because; she’d want to control it and break Ireland when it’s the best timing for her.”

“That’s unexpectedly insightful of you, Bane,” Saracen said.

“I get there on occasion, Rue.”

“So she would have told specific people,” said Tanith. “Like who?”

“Who _don’t_ we want to find out about this?” Dex asked. “Who, specifically, is in a position of authority here while being kept in the dark?”

“Guild,” Valkyrie.

“And I don’t remember seeing Guild this morning.”

They all looked at Hopeless and Hopeless rested his chin on Rover’s shoulder, reaching his arms around Rover’s waist to sign. _‘I haven’t heard him come in personally but some people saw him while I was in bed.’_

“What, you were in bed and you didn’t invite me?” Rover grumbled, wriggling so he could properly see everyone. “I object.”

“I hate to tell you this, Rover,” said Dex, “but I was in bed with him.”

“Now I _really_ object!” Rover flapped his hands at them from the side. “You were cheating on me, Dex? You slept with Descry without inviting _me_?”

“That’s the definition of cheating, Rover.”

“I’ll forgive you if you invite me next time.”

“No promises.”

“Guild’s not in the Sanctuary right now, is he?” Tanith asked, ignoring their banter. Valkyrie just grinned. She couldn’t wait until Skulduggery was back and could join in.

“He can’t be,” she said. “Otherwise Hopeless would know all of this already.”

“I still don’t see how any of this helps us find the bloody skull,” Fletcher muttered.

Valkyrie flopped on the couch, sprawling over it so she could look at them upside-down, like Rover sometimes did. He claimed it helped his brain work. Valkyrie had asked, ‘what brain?’

“It does if you think like Skulduggery,” she said.

“Go on, then,” said Ghastly, looking amused.

Valkyrie held up a finger. “One, we know Marr bought the skull.” She held up another finger. “Two, we suspect that she went to Guild to distract us. Three, she’s a detective so she’s smart enough to know we’ll be looking for her or the skull out of country, right?”

“Right,” said Dex.

“So why wouldn’t she just give the skull to Guild and tell him it’s to stop you guys from rescuing Skulduggery? I mean it’s the truth and he’d want to do that anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” said Donegan, “are you saying that Guild has the skull in his office right _now_?”

“I don’t know, am I?”

“Is it?” Ghastly asked Saracen, but Saracen shook his head. Ghastly sighed. “Of course not. That would have been too easy.”

“Where would he have taken it?” Tanith asked.

“Possibly his home, if he didn’t want Descry to know he has it,” said Dex.

“He’s a big meanie,” said Rover, stroking Hopeless’s hair. “There, there. He’s just a party-pooper trying to stop the party.”

“What’s the plan, then?” Tanith asked, fingering her sword-handle like she was anxious to stick it in someone and annoyed there was no one to stick it into.

“Valkyrie investigates who might have helped break Scapegrace out of the Gaol,” said Dex. “I doubt that was Guild. It’s too menial for him, and admits that Marr is using criminals. That would never fly with Guild.”

“Yay,” said Valkyrie mockingly, and Dex reached down to knuckle her head.

“Quiet you. Tanith, I need you to take Fletcher and the Monster Hunters and investigate Marr more directly. She’s all but kidnapped a friend of Val’s who has some kind of gravity-related magic and she’s involved with whoever’s trying to stop us from rescuing Skulduggery, and we need to know more. Ask Val about Scapegrace for leads.”

“And what about us, _mon capitaine?_ ” Rover demanded.

“We’re going to break into Guild’s house,” said Dexter.


	15. Down the barrel

The building had been reduced to rubble. The stone was charred even beneath the settled dust, and debris had been flung out where it hit other buildings. Most of them were okay, but a few windows had been broken and great chips had been left in the walls.

“A little more,” said Erskine, his voice strained as he reached for the scrap of metal lying some feet below him. It hadn’t come from the building.

It’d come from the bomb that destroyed it.

With a grunt Anton levered the beam higher, making dust slide down and coat everything with a fine layer. Stone ground together and Erskine froze, and waited for the noise to stop. He shimmied down a little further and flicked his fingers, and the metal unhooked itself and sailed into his hand, and he pulled himself back upright, groaning at the throb in his bruised shoulder.

“Clear.”

Very, very carefully Anton lowered the beam again, and Erskine heard things falling and rock striking rock, and then everything settled with a little sigh of billowing dust. Erskine dropped down from the pile, wiping away the dust on his vest. It settled right back where it was a moment later, but Erskine took comfort in the fact it would come off relatively easily once he had the time to deal with it.

“Are you bloody well insane?!” Corrival bellowed, and Erskine grinned at the sight of the man bearing down on them with his faded coloured coat flapping behind him, and then winced when his split lip pulled.

“Just working, General sir,” he said, lifting the shard of debris.

“Good job, you managed to find an utterly useless piece of scrap,” Corrival growled.

“It’s a piece of the bomb,” said Anton, stepping down beside them and stretching his bad shoulder. Erskine waved toward one of the runners and handed it off into a plastic bag, and sent her off to the underwater lab where the bombs were being reconstructed.

“I thought you were over in Éire,” said Erskine, and _now_ he patted himself down, flicking his hand to blow the dust away before it could settle again. Anton handed him his coat.

“I was,” said Corrival. “I came to liaise before I report to the governor. Circles?”

“All inoperable,” said Anton.

“Same as the other districts, then.” Corrival rubbed his forehead with a sigh. Like them, he was dusty, and it made his grey hair look coarser and greyer than it was. “If you’re done here, you may as well come back with me.”

“Got an air-ferry waiting?” Erskine asked, glancing unhappily across the Watercourse. The water-level had changed, and now getting a ferry was an arduous undertaking he didn’t particularly want to undertake.

“Up on Deck,” said Corrival, and turned and walked away, leaving them to follow. In their wake were the occasional whisper and the grim toil of men and women slowly taking apart the ruins of the Australis Interdimensional Bridge. A lot of the debris could be reused—it was about the only saving-grace about the situation, right now. It wasn’t much of one, but Erskine was going to take what he could get.

“The borders?” Anton asked as they moved, throwing a studying gaze at the sky.

“Nothing yet,” said Corrival. “But from what Erskine’s lot tells me it’s only a matter of the beasties realising we’re here. So much for six-legged cows and orange bunnies.”

“They were the least lethal things here,” Erskine objected. “No one would have wanted to come if we’d led with, ‘by the way, everything in that dimension is twice the size of anything in our dimension, and that’s if you can recognise it as a corollary species’.”

“The orange poisonous bunnies are the least lethal things here,” Corrival said flatly, leading the way up the stairs toward the Deck.

“A better word might be ‘hostile’. They’re the least _hostile_ things here.”

“I wonder why that is.”

“And the cows are the only things that are immune.”

“Fancy that.”

“Which is actually good for us, because it means as long as we can get through everything else’s fur and scales and whatnot, we’ve collected a good amount of poison to be defending ourselves with.”

“Shut up, Ravel.”

“How do you plan to do that with the water-dwelling species?” Anton asked curiously.

“I don’t want to hear it, Shudder.”

“We have limpet mines,” Erskine explained. “They were fairly effective last time too—the main problem will be if one of the crocodiles sniff us out.”

“And when you say ‘crocodiles’,” said Corrival, “you mean one of the fifty-foot-long monstrosities wearing armour who could swallow one of the ferries in one gulp.”

“We’re pretty sure none of them live in the lake anymore, but one of them might have gotten in through a tributary during a recent rainfall.”

“You’re a bundle of reassurance, Ravel.”

“Look on the bright side,” said Erskine. “At least we’re not in a dimension with the Faceless Ones.”

That silenced them all quite effectively, and none of them spoke as they reached the Deck and boarded the air-ferry conscripted into service for the city’s emergency crews. Erskine fingered the chain of his pocketwatch, and even though he knew the time won’t have changed, that it was long past 10 o’clock in the morning, Dublin time, he couldn’t help but take a peek.

He wondered how the others were doing. Whether they’d gotten the skull without much trouble. Whether they were, even now, opening a portal into the dimension of Skulduggery’s prison. What they were thinking that they couldn’t get in contact with Erskine and Anton.

He hoped they wouldn’t need China. None of them had _asked_ , because they had the sigils from last time and some notes from Hopeless’s book, but still the fact that they couldn’t blackmail her into helping if they needed her made Erskine feel a touch bit insecure about their chances. Leaving aside the fact the others would have to invade a dimension filled with Faceless Ones alone and with short numbers, of course.

They touched down on Central Deck to a flurry of motion. Everything was being coordinated from Central—which meant the Deck, where the ferries landed, was the busiest place in the city save the precinct now. Blair came out of the crowd, making a bee-line for them.

“Sirs,” he said, and almost forgot to salute. “Sirs, I can’t get in contact with Alice.”

“Your partner?” Corrival asked.

“Mr Shudder asked her to keep track of a man in the Midnight Hotel, sir. But the Hotel is empty now and I can’t raise her on her radio or her phone.”

“Where would she be?” Corrival demanded.

“Wherever the man is.”

Erskine glanced at Anton. “Man?”

“Scarab,” said Anton. “He entered the Hotel to book a room just as I was about to leave. I had Officer Owens on guard to ensure he did nothing untoward.”

“That’s remarkably coincidental,” Erskine muttered.

“That Dreylan Scarab would check into the Hotel moments before it arrives in an interdimensional city?” asked China Sorrows behind them. “Whyever would you think it _coincidental_?”

Erskine sighed. Blair was blushing furiously and trying, very hard, not to look in China’s direction, and judging by the way he was twisting his wedding-ring on his finger the man had already met her and was developing his defences. “You’re meant to be in Zhonghua District.”

“Oh, I was,” China assured him, coming to his side and linking her arm in his, and giving him a radiant smile. “Now I’m here. I’m fascinated, Erskine, by the laws you seem to have placed on certain disciplines of magic.”

Erskine gave her a radiant smile back. “You mean like yours?”

“Precisely.”

“If the two of you would stop glowing everywhere,” said Corrival, “and let everyone else get some work done, please?”

Erskine glanced around to find nearly everyone in the near vicinity had stopped to look at them with varying shades of blushing awe. Calmly he plucked China’s arm out of his, but she only laughed as she took it back. “Magical government outside the Tír revolves around maintaining secrecy from mortals,” he said. “No one questions individual practices unless they’re outright damaging.”

“Are you suggesting my magic should be reclassified?”

“I’m saying that in a city which relies on sigils instead of secrecy there should be rules about how they’re used.”

“Why, Erskine,” said China, “if I didn’t know any better I’d think you didn’t like me.”

“I wonder why that could be,” said Erskine flatly, and strode away from the edge of the Deck toward the tower.

“I didn’t think you were the type to let personal dislike get in the way of procuring vital information,” said China.

Erskine stopped and cursed her in his head so he didn’t do it out loud and in _public_ , and then turned around and strode back. His smile was charming and cutting in equal amounts. “ _Miss_ Sorrows, let me assure you that if you are in any way withholding information vital to the defence of this city, and if you are honestly about to try and _blackmail_ me with it, then I will have no problem whatsoever having you arrested and flung into the deepest cell the Tír currently has to offer for an extremely long time.”

China only laughed again. Erskine’s jaw clenched, and it took effort not to let his fist clench as well.

“Erskine,” said China, “if I was the type to let rules get in the way, do you think I’d be here?”

“If you contravene the laws of this city _in any way_ —”

“You’ll have me drawn and quartered, I know,” said China, and while she was still smiling, Erskine realised abruptly that her eyes were wary. She’d been testing him, testing how far he would go, and he wondered exactly what she’d seen in his face to pull back the way she just had. Maybe she’d just remembered that the last time she had blackmailed the Dead Men with vital information, Erskine had come at her with a knife.

As a matter of fact, it was only because of the other Dead Men that he hadn’t actually stuck her with it. Saracen and Skulduggery had been the ones to decide what to tell her, back then—Hopeless’s magic in return for where Mevolent would have taken him.

Erskine looked at her, and yes, he could tell she remembered, and he could also tell she’d realised that this part of him, at least, hadn’t changed.

“First,” said China, “I’d just like to confirm that you do, in fact, have something to do with the rather abrupt disappearance of one Billy-Ray Sanguine from the assassins-for-hire community.”

Erskine took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and glanced at Corrival, because he wasn’t capable of making the choice to tell China anything at all, and he knew it.

“He tried to assassinate the governor last year,” said Corrival. “He’s been imprisoned here since then.”

“You managed to imprison a burrower?” China raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. I suppose the charmingly coarse Aboriginal woman is responsible for that?”

“Digger doesn’t take her burrowing for granted the way Sanguine does,” Erskine said shortly.

“To be sure. Then, in the interests of defending the city in which I am unfortunately trapped, I’d like to point out to you that Billy-Ray Sanguine is Dreylan Scarab’s son.”

Blair made a strangled sort of noise.

“Scarab isn’t the sort to care about familial ties,” said Anton.

“Maybe not,” said Corrival, “but he’d know what his son’s capable of, and if someone _else_ knows that too, then using Daddy to get to Junior is their best chance of staging an escape.”

“That,” said Erskine, “and blowing up half the city where he’s imprisoned.” He turned and ran for the tower, and felt some of the others follow him. The precinct was crowded, but people parted when they saw him coming, and Erskine had never felt so grateful for that fact right now.

Khutulun was heading the recovery attempts, at least in terms of administrating efforts. “Where’s Digger?” Erskine demanded, interrupting the orders she was giving to one of her assistants.

“Unknown,” said Khutulun implacably without consulting either her clipboard or the assistant. “She was last seen in the governor’s office, but she has neglected to check-in after the fact.”

“Signate?”

Now Khutulun looked at him, and now he could see the tension around her piercing eyes. “No one can account for him since before the insurgents attacked. We’ve had to appoint one of the other shunters in charge of the reconstruction effort.”

They had four shunters in the city. All of them were under a century old. All of them were responsible for maintenance of the Bridges. They wouldn’t have had to shunt directly between dimensions without the Bridges there as a guide—not the way Creyfon had.

“Send a ready team down to the gaol,” Erskine said tersely, already turning toward the elevators. Anton was right behind him. So was Blair, looking pale but with a tight grip on his rifle. Corrival waded through the crowd to Khutulun, and Erskine heard him explaining in a low voice, but then they commandeered one of the elevators and the doors shut on the hubbub upstairs.

The gaol was on skeleton staff, with all available personnel drawn away to help with the insurgent Children. Now the same people were on emergency response around the Bridges, and Erskine didn’t remember hearing anything from the gaol proper. He didn’t even know if the surviving insurgent Children had been taken down, or whether Madam Mist had taken the care of them.

“Scarab had to have had help,” Anton said quietly.

“Anyone could have gotten in through the EID after the Children,” Erskine said. “They knew I’d call you to help with Brobding and they knew you’d put someone on guard in front of the Hotel. Someone was waiting to come in after the Children did.”

“They would have had to escape once the Bridges were destroyed.”

“That’s why they took Creyfon first.”

“But what about Detective Digger?” Blair asked. “She doesn’t know anything about shunting.”

“She’s also the person who humiliated Sanguine,” said Erskine. “He holds grudges.”

The sigils flickered and died. The elevator jolted, dropped suddenly and then came to a grinding, shuddering halt. For a moment they stood there in darkness, gripping the walls. Erskine ground his teeth.

“Go ahead,” said Anton after a moment, and Erskine let loose with a long string of Irish curses, and then took a breath. “Feel better?”

“Much,” said Erskine. “I’m an idiot.”

“I’m hardly going to object. May I have some light?”

Erskine snapped his fingers and nothing happened, and he heard the rattle of Blair getting out his sigil-powered torch, and _still_ nothing happened.

“May I swear again, Mother?” Erskine asked, very calmly.

“You may not. I presume this elevator, aside from being run by sigils, is otherwise built similarly to other elevators.”

Erskine watched the figure he was fairly sure was Anton reach up to the ceiling.

“Mostly, yes,” he said. “There’s no cable but there’s emergency stops at every floor in case the sigils are broken.”

“Then there should still be a crawlspace for repairs.” There was a scrape as Anton pushed the grate aside and dim light shone through. Erskine tapped his shoulder and made a cradle with his hands, and grunted as Anton used him as a ladder, pulling himself easily up through the opening.

“You’re next,” Erskine said to Blair, and saw his silhouette shift his rifle onto his back before stepping closer. Erskine heaved him up into the opening too, and then Anton’s arm came down and Erskine grasped it, and Anton hauled him up onto the elevator roof. The whole of his bad arm was throbbing, and he tucked it in against his side and rubbed his shoulder, hoping that none of the doctors would have cause to yell at him after this was over.

Above their heads the shaft was lit with emergency-repair sigils, so the magic-neutralising effect only went so far. Erskine would have bet on it encompassing the gaol. Around them was darkness, though, and when Erskine found the ladder and climbed down it, the darkness grew deeper between the wall and the elevator. The emergency stop had kicked in when the sigils cut out, and Erskine found himself thankful that at least _something_ was working.

He climbed one-armed down to the next floor and squeezed onto the ledge, and waited for Anton to join him. Blair’s silhouette tapped Anton’s shoulder and handed him something and Anton grunted, then inserted a thin wedge between the doors so they could get a grip. Between the two Dead Men they managed to get the doors open, and Erskine stepped out and found a rifle pointed at his face.

“Sir!” blurted the guard on the other side of it, and hastily put up his weapon and snapped a salute. There was an emergency battery-powered torch attached to his lapel, glaring in Erskine’s eyes so he couldn’t see the man properly.

“I take this to mean the gaol’s been compromised,” said Erskine, blinking.

“Sir, yes sir, someone’s modified the sigils for magic-nullification and we’ve been unable to establish communications between here and the precinct, sir!”

“Wonderful. In that case, I need to see the warden, and I need to see them five minutes ago.” Anton joined Erskine in the hall, and Erskine glanced his way. “This is your fault, you know,” he said. “I knew I shouldn’t have invited you to the party. You complicate everything.”


	16. Dead Men working

It probably said something, Dexter thought, that the Irish Sanctuary’s best detectives could be reduced to breaking into the house belonging to one of their Elders. He wasn’t sure _what_ it said, but it had to say _something_ , and Dexter was very sternly not thinking about it.

“This is a bad idea,” Ghastly muttered, and Rover hissed at him. “I mean it. A really bad idea.”

“We’re just breaking illegally into the dwelling of one of Ireland’s Elders and the one who would toss us in a cell if he knew,” said Saracen. “What’s so bad about it?”

“We’re breaking into _an ally’s house_ , Saracen. That doesn’t strike you as duplicitous?”

“Would you rather ask whether he has the skull and would be so good as to return it?” Dexter asked.

“No. But that doesn’t make this feel right.”

Which was probably what it said, really, because Dexter agreed. He didn’t like Guild, but he didn’t like breaking into an ally’s house, either, especially an ally who might well use any advantage he could get to have all of them discredited.

All of it stank, but they didn’t have much of a choice. They needed the Murder Skull, and negotiating with Guild outright would only prove to him they were trying to do something stupid. Hopeless had refused to blackmail him, either, which was typically Hopeless enough that Rover had only made the suggestion half-heartedly to begin with. Hopeless was right, anyway; he had to work with Guild in the future, no matter what. They couldn’t make those relations worse, not if Guild now knew how Hopeless knew what he did.

All of which meant they were now sitting in one of Rover’s cars down the street from Guild’s suburban house, on the peninsula of Howth, Nashville Drive. It was both nothing like Dexter imagined Guild’s house to be and _exactly_ like what he imagined Guild’s house to be. He had been expecting some kind of estate, but it was still in a rich, influential and lazy neighbourhood, with lawns that were neatly clipped and unnaturally green, and the house spotless. There was a car in the driveway.

“Who’s home?” Dexter asked.

“Guild’s wife,” said Saracen, and they all stared at him.

“Guild has a _wife_?” Rover asked, sounding thunderstruck.

“A pretty one, too.”

“How pretty?”

“There’s no scale on prettiness, Rover, you cad.”

“I mean, how _young_? Young is _usually_ prettier. Except when people ripen with age, like Descry. I think I should stop talking now.”

Saracen was laughing silently. So was Dexter. It was mostly nervous energy for them both—mostly. “She’s younger than I’d have thought,” said Saracen. “And I’m fairly sure she’s mortal.”

“She is?” Ghastly asked, sounding as startled as Dexter felt. Dexter craned around to look at Saracen from the driver’s seat.

“How do you know?” he demanded without thinking, and Saracen, inevitably, grinned and tapped his nose. “I still hate you,” Dexter muttered. “Will the direct approach work?”

“I think so.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I thought I’d leave it up to the _detective_ while we sneak in the back.”

Dexter sighed and got out of the car, and went to Guild’s house, and pressed the doorbell. He heard sounds of movement inside and waited patiently, and a moment later the door was opened by a pretty young woman. “Hello?”

“Hello,” Dexter said with a bow. “I’m Dexter Vex, a detective with the Sanctuary. May I come in?”

The woman looked startled. “Detective Vex? I wasn’t—expecting you.” She glanced out onto the street, but she didn’t see the car. They’d parked just around the corner. “Is something wrong with Thurid?”

“I haven’t spoken to Elder Guild yet today, ma’am,” said Dexter with a straight face, “and he hasn’t been seen around the Sanctuary.”

“Oh, dear.” Now the woman looked worried, and after a moment she nodded and opened the door wider. “You’d better come in, then. Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you,” said Dexter, and stepped into the hall. “Have you seen your husband today, ma’am?”

“Yes,” said Guild’s wife, taking him into the kitchen and moving to the counter to put together some tea with the nervous energy a civilian didn’t know how to use. “He took our daughter to school, and then he was meant to go into the Sanctuary. But he came back only a couple of hours ago—he said it was an emergency.”

‘Our daughter’, she said. Dexter let himself feel a moment of incredulity that Guild had a daughter, and went right onto examining the woman’s use of words. She hadn’t introduced herself yet; she avoided using names. Saracen was probably right—mortal, and cautious to boot. She was familiar with the magical world and knew how to protect herself in it, at least to some degree.

“Did he bring anything home with him?” Dexter asked. “A package?”

Guild’s wife turned, frowning. “Well, yes. But then he took it with him when he left.”

Now it was Dexter’s turn to frown. “What did he come home for and where did he go after that?”

For a very long time Guild’s wife looked at him. Dexter looked back, feeling rather as though he was under glass. Whatever he thought of her taste in men, she wasn’t stupid, and she was careful. Dexter could throw around a name and maybe she even recognised him enough to take the chance that he was telling the truth—but depending on what Guild had said to her, she might not help. Not unless Dexter could convince her that Guild was in danger.

He didn’t want to do that. It was bad enough he was here to distract her while plotting to steal from her husband. Worse if he lied, made her worry about a man Dexter hoped she loved.

“He gave me an address,” she said at last. “He said that if he didn’t come home tonight I should give it to Mr Bliss.”

“But you’re going to give it to me?”

Guild’s wife smiled wryly. “I know who you are, Detective. And I know that my husband isn’t very fond of you. But when he came back he was angry and uncertain, and I very rarely see Thurid like that. He said he’d been given some evidence he couldn’t quite believe. ‘Even the Dead Men have their limits’, he said. I don’t know what he was talking about, but I know Thurid, and I know he has a habit of forgetting how to ask for help. So yes, I’m going to give the address to you, and hope that _your_ dislike of _him_ won’t stop you from using it the right way.”

She went out to a bureau in the hall and Dexter stood frozen, watching where she’d left his sight. She didn’t even know him, except that her husband didn’t like him, and she was still willing to trust him. Dexter had to wonder why. It couldn’t just have been his name and his unit, given they were the _reasons_ Guild didn’t like him.

Guild’s wife came back in and gave him an envelope.

“Thank you,” said Dexter quietly.

“Don’t thank me,” she said, moving past him to clean up the tea-things they hadn’t used. “If you turn out to be as bad a man as Thurid was fearing, I fully believe in karma, Detective Vex.”

Dexter smiled slightly. “I’ll keep that in mind. And I’ll try to keep you in the loop. Good day.”

He bowed and turned and left the house.

 

The address led to a motel in Santry, alarmingly near the airport. They took the car around the back without checking in at reception, to an open parking-lot not too near the motel rooms, and climbed out and looked around with grim faces.

“That one,” said Saracen quietly, nodding to a room across the way.

“It’s got the best defensive position,” Dexter agreed. “What’s in there?”

“For one thing,” said Saracen, “Gail.”

“Valkyrie’s friend from school?” Ghastly asked.

Rover put up his hand. “Now _that’s_ coincidental. It’s booby-trapped, right? Tell me it’s booby-trapped. It’s _gotta_ be booby-trapped. I’d hate to think the person running rings around us all this time was stupid enough to kidnap a pet and then forget to guard her.”

“Nothing that I can tell,” said Saracen.

“So they want her to be found,” Ghastly said with a frown. “Guild?”

Saracen shook his head and they wordlessly moved into formation. Rover and Dexter went to the windows, Ghastly and Saracen went to the door. At Saracen’s nod Ghastly knocked and called out, “Gail?”

The curtains were drawn so Dexter couldn’t see inside the room, but he was fairly sure he heard a rustle and the sort of gasp people used when they’d just been woken suddenly.

“Gail, it’s Ghastly Bespoke,” Ghastly said in that kind tone he had when he was trying to lure puppies. “I’m guessing you didn’t want to be found, or expect to be found, and to be perfectly honest we didn’t expect to find you here—but I’m glad we found you. We’ve been worried. May I come in?”

For a very long time there was no answer. There then was one, tearful and unsure. “I can’t let anyone in.”

“Alright.” Ghastly nodded. “Can you tell me why?”

“The—the detective lady said so. She said, ‘Gail, don’t let anyone except me into the room.’”

Dexter’s heart beat faster and a cold sweat worked its way down his arms. Ghastly’s mouth drew tight. Rover mouthed curses, and accompanied them with the appropriate signs.

“Is the door locked?” Ghastly asked quietly.

“She locked it when she left.” Another pause, and then more tearfully than before, “Is—is everyone very angry?”

“We’re not angry at all,” Ghastly assured her, putting a hand over the lock. His brow furrowed as he concentrated, and then he looked up at them and shook his head. The door was magically jammed. It didn’t matter if they could pick the lock if it wouldn’t open. “Like I said, we’ve been worried. Valkyrie said you’ve barely been talking to her. She was determined to find you and explain.”

There came a very quiet, “Oh.” There was another bout of silence while Dexter and Rover examined their windows. “Explain what?”

Ghastly paused and glanced around at them, and Rover and Dexter gave him shrugs. “That she doesn’t care about what happened in the Sanctuary.”

“… Oh.”

“Gail, we’re going to break the door down,” said Ghastly.

“Please don’t do that.”

“Your mother’s been worried about you,” Ghastly explained. “I, for one, don’t want to go back to the Sanctuary and tell her we found you and left you here alone.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Gail, and she sounded close to tears again, but resigned as well. “The detective lady told me to defend myself if anyone other than her tried to come into the room. I don’t—” Her voice wobbled. “I don’t want to kill you. Please?”

They looked at Saracen. Saracen grimaced.

_‘When we catch up to M,_ ’ Rover signed, _‘I’m going to do several things. I could hang her up to the clocktower in garlic bunches. I could wrap her in a flag and toss her into the Liffey. I could put her in magic-binders and toss her to the warlocks.’_

_‘Get in line,’_ Dexter signed back.

“Alright,” Ghastly said aloud at the door. “We’re still here. We’re working on a solution. Sit tight.” To the others he signed, _‘One of us has to counteract M’s order.’_

_‘I’ve never called anyone out before, have you?’_ Saracen asked with a punctuated gesture. Ghastly shook his head. Rover shrugged. They all looked at Dexter.

_‘I’ve never called anyone out before either,’_ Dexter signed viciously.

_‘But you know how it’s done,’_ Saracen said, _‘better than anyone, and we need to overcome M’s control. That means we need the person best able to use a name.’_

Dexter cursed them at length with his hands, and then took Ghastly’s place at the door and cleared his throat. “Gail,” he said, “it’s Dexter Vex. I’m going to use your name to counteract … Detective Marr’s … influence on you, okay?”

The answer came in a small voice. “Will that work?”

All of a sudden Dexter felt very tired. “I don’t know. But it’s the best way right now, and we can tell whether or not it works without anyone getting hurt.”

The alternatives involved wasting time with going back to the Sanctuary and getting something to toss in to knock her out, and that involved explaining _why_ they needed it. They didn’t have time for that. They needed to find Guild, Marr, Erskine, Anton and the skull, not necessarily in that order.

“… Okay.”

“Okay.” Dexter took a deep, possibly unnecessary breath and considered how to phrase his words. It was important, possibly one of the most important things he’d ever had to say, because of the magic in how he had to say it. He’d never used this sort of magic before. He’d never _wanted_ to use this magic before. But he knew how it was done, because his father had always used it on him.

“Gail, you’re not beholden to follow any previous orders given with your name, or attack anyone, even if they walk through this door.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Gail said uncertainly, “I think I felt something different?”

Even before Saracen had said so, or Dexter even needed him to say anything, Dexter blasted the door off its hinges and strode in. Gail was huddled on the bed and she flinched as the door fell with a muffled thud, gazing at him wide-eyed, but she didn’t try to attack him and moment later her fear dissolved into relief.

“I didn’t hurt you,” she said, and even though it was stupid and he knew it, Dexter didn’t even bother clearing the room before going over and wrapping her in a hug. Gail stiffened and then relaxed and folded into the hug, and Dexter heard her sniffling, and felt the shoulder of his T-shirt go wet. He didn’t care. He just hugged her tightly, letting the others clear the room and pick up evidence. It wasn’t long before Rover came over too, and hugged Gail from the other side, and she sat sandwiched between them, trembling but silent.

“I tried to think of a name,” she said after a few minutes, muffled and watery.

“I know,” Dexter said quietly.

“I really really _tried_ but none of them fit and I’ve heard stories about people with names that don’t fit and I didn’t want a name like that and it doesn’t really work unless you really _want_ it and—”

“I know.” Dexter ran his fingers through her hair and swallowed a lump in his throat. “Is there anything else she ordered you to do with your name?”

“To do what she said,” said Gail, “b- but I—” Her voice trembled.

“Yes?” Dexter asked as gently as he could.

“She didn’t need to at first,” Gail whispered. “I thought she was a friend. I thought she was going to help me.”

“Help you do what?”

“Not hurt people.”

Rover twitched but said nothing, so Dexter answered for him. He could feel Saracen and Ghastly watching over his shoulder, but keeping their distance. “You don’t have to hurt anyone you don’t want to hurt, Gail.”

“But my magic,” Gail wailed. “I hurt people! I k- killed people! I didn’t mean to!”

“The Administrator wasn’t your fault,” Dexter said firmly. “She moved to attack you and you reacted to defend yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you don’t want to have gravity magic you don’t have to have gravity magic. We can help you with that.”

“That’s what she said,” Gail said with a sob. “She said she was going to take me somewhere to help me and then she took me here and told me I needed to kill anyone who came in and I didn’t want to and then Elder Guild came along and—”

“Guild was here?” Dexter asked, and Gail shook, and her tears became audible for the first time.

“I—t- think—I think I killed him too.”

“What happened?” Ghastly asked very gently. Dexter envied him for that. He didn’t think he could say anything right now.

“He came in,” Gail whispered, “and I didn’t want to attack him, so I tried to fight it, and he saw me, and I think he started to say something and then I—h- hurt him. Then the detective lady came back and took him away.”

“What did she tell you to do?” Dexter asked, and his voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. “When she told you to use magic on people who came in—what words did she use exactly?”

“She said to attack anyone who came in.”

“She didn’t want you to kill the people who got in,” Saracen said. “Just hurt them. Guild’s probably still alive.”

“Yeah, but now we have to go _find him_ ,” Rover grumbled. “Not to mention all the others. Wherever _they’ve_ all scampered off to, anyway.”

“Did he have a package?” Ghastly asked patiently, and Rover lifted his head and looked at him incredulously.

“That depends on what kind of package,” he blurted, “and what kind of question is that to ask anyway?”

“No,” said Gail, sounding confused.

So he didn’t have the skull on him when he came here, which meant that he’d taken it somewhere else before he arrived. It was times like this Dexter wished Hopeless was still allowed in the field, because he didn’t want to talk about this with a traumatised young lady in his arms, but there wasn’t really an option otherwise.

He looked up and saw Saracen dangling a set of keys. “Voila,” he said.

“No.” Dexter smile incredulously with pure relief. “Guild’s?”

“I hope so. I’m going to see if I can find his car. Toodle-pip.”

He turned and left Dexter and Rover cradling Gail, and Gail sniffling in their laps. “There was another man here,” she said after a moment. “With the detective lady. Not today, but last night.”

“Do you know who he is?” Dexter asked, and Gail shook her head into his shoulder.

“He did something,” she said, muffled into his shoulder. “I don’t remember him at all. I remember that he was here, but not who he was or what he looks like or … or anything.”

“Height?” Dexter asked a little desperately. “Hair colour? Skin? Voice?”

“Not anything,” said Gail, and finally raised her head, and her pale face was red and splotchy from the tears. “But I remember that he took her memories too. Detective Marr’s. She couldn’t remember him either.”


	17. Last vampire standing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: major traumatic stress response.

The gaol, Erskine was told, had been out of contact since just before the raid on the governor’s office. Officer Alice Owens had come in with a couple of strangers, one dark-haired and handsome and the other old. They would have asked the guard on duty what happened next, but he’d had his throat ripped out.

“It was the old man who changed the wards,” said the warden, looking tired and disgruntled and a little bit lost. He wasn’t even one of the prison commanders. He’d been fourth on the shortlist of emergency wardens, lowest of senior staff. He hadn’t been prepared for this, but he was holding up relatively well. He’d done everything by the book, anyway.

Not everything could be done by the book.

“Where’s Alice?” Blair asked, and the warden looked at him. Erskine could almost read his thoughts from his expression: ‘who is this nobody rubbing elbows with the prince?’

“They took her deeper into the gaol,” the warden said without making an issue of the envy. “They’ve locked the doors into the maximum security area. We’ve been trying to get in ourselves, but none of us are sigil-masons, and we haven’t been able to get through to get one down here.”

“Then it’s a very good thing,” Erskine said, “that I have here the very first sigil-mason in the world.”

Anton grunted. “No such thing.”

“Don’t be modest, Shudder. I stole half my ideas from you.”

“I know. I’m still not such thing. Masons are artists.”

“Some,” said Erskine, “in fact a _lot_ of people here would argue that you are too. But that’s not the point. Think you have a better knowledge of sigils than Scarab does?”

Anton looked at him for a long moment and with a blank face that made Blair and the warden exchange glances. Erskine smiled winningly. “Scarab,” said Anton, “didn’t build a hotel from the ground up using sigils for most of its utilities.”

“Is that a yes, then?”

“I dislike you at times, Ravel.”

“I’m not trying hard enough.” Erskine turned to the warden. “Direct us to the armoury and the maximum security facility. If you have a map, I want to see it.”

Maximum security was in the centre of the tower, inside a doughnut-shaped concrete block around the tower’s long skylight. If the prisoners broke out that way, they had a long fall ahead of them. If they didn’t, they had to fight through the guards. That was if they’d managed to get out their magic-binding restraints at all, which wasn’t likely and didn’t matter if they did because the whole gaol was staffed by mortals and under magic-binding wards.

But those magic-binding wards weren’t supposed to extend to the elevator, and that part _was_ Scarab’s fault. Magic-binding wards didn’t negate sigils from being used or amended as long as they were a part of the same ward, which was how prisons the world over managed to keep prisoners alive without the need for trivial things like food and amenities. They were going to need to have sigil-masons go over the wards in the gaol with a fine-toothed comb after this.

They left the warden at the control post, where he was alone in manning the communication sigils in the wards while his staff went about looking after the cells. He watched them leave shifting from one foot to the other, looking unhappy, but the man was an administrator. He had no business being in the middle of the conflict, unlike the armed guards, and luckily he was smart enough to realise that.

When they reached the armoury Anton picked out a rifle and a spare strap to sling Daisy over his shoulder, and Erskine took two of the handguns. They would have more of an edge if Scarab had fiddled with the wards in maximum security so that magic was allowed, but although Erskine wasn’t an expert he had been involved in these designs. Making a section of warding change natures compared to the rest took time and effort Scarab probably wouldn’t spare. Sanguine wasn’t affected by wards anyway; all they needed was the antidote to the serum Sanguine had been dosed with.

And, thanks to the warden’s report, they now knew that Scarab and his unnamed companion had hit the infirmary first.

There were guards at the maximum security section. They saluted the moment Erskine approached.

“Sir, Warden Wordsmith would like to report that the ready team has arrived in the holding-area, sir,” said one of the guards.

“Tell him to brief them and then send them after us,” Erskine ordered. “We’ll check in at the guard station on the other end.” He checked his handguns’ charges one last time. The weapons down here didn’t rely on sigils. They’d been designed to work in any circumstance. They used theories of energy manipulation only discovered thanks to energy-throwing, yes, and they relied on certain objects science would technically call ‘magic’, but only in as far as lightsabers could be called ‘magic’.

If Erskine recalled correctly, some enthusiastic young magic-science researcher had gotten the idea from _Star Wars_ and insisted it was possible. They’d had to get the materials from the very dimension, and the very _dangerous_ dimension, in which they were now trapped.

Erskine wondered whether that particular researcher would have pleased to know that stones like that existed in their dimension too. That they powered the Sceptre of the Ancients. Probably. Maybe not so pleased with the knowledge that the Ancients had done it first.

He took a deep breath and held his first sidearm at ready, and nodded to the guard at the lock. The guard put his hand against the lock and the door clunked and slid aside. Anton covered the hall first and then stepped in, and Erskine followed, leaving Blair to cover their rear.

They moved down the hall without a word, and almost at once they were hounded by the shouts of the prisoners. Even a city like the Tír, with its desire for tolerance and peace, had a handful of people they simply hadn’t been able to rehabilitate. Not many, not so many that they filled this section of the prison—though they were usually kept in distanced cells to avoid encouraging each other—but a few.

Some of the shouts were afraid, but most seemed to be entertained. They echoed too much for Erskine to tell what they were saying, but if he had to guess it sounded a lot like a cockfight.

The problem was, there were no cocks down here, or at least only the kind Rover would be interested in if they were being terribly impolite; so whoever the prisoners were cheering was most likely something very, very bad. Erskine quelled the urge to advance more quickly than was wise, letting Anton move to the corner. Erskine flanked him and fished out his mirror and didn’t see anyone in the hall around the corner but did catch movement behind bars.

He signalled to Anton and Anton moved into the next passage, and they took three corners this way, slow and steady with the sounds of shouting had grown louder and less echoed. Now they were accompanied by snarls and the clang of a body hitting bars.

“Get ’im get ’im get ’im!”

“So close!”

“ _Get her away from me! Please! Help! Get her away!_ ”

There was the definite movement of someone in the hallway. Erskine signalled Anton and moved in front of him at a crouch with one of his sidearms ready, and held up his hand to count down. As one they moved around the corner, Erskine low and Anton high, and Alice Owens whirled toward them and the stun-bolts hit her in the chest. She crumpled and her hand fell into one of the cells, and the prisoner reached down and yanked her up against the bars, but a scattering of shots from three different stun-weapons penetrated the door. The prisoner fell, and Alice slid back to the floor.

“Cavalry saves the day,” said one of the prisoners, and then laughed like he’d said the most hysterical thing ever. It was eerily similar to Larrikin, except significantly more deranged.

Anton moved down the hall first, striding to the end to check around the corner while Erskine covered the prisoners. There were three: one unconscious on the floor of his cell, one slumped panting against the far wall of his, and the third still laughing.

“How is she?” he asked Blair, catching the man kneel beside his partner in the corner of his vision.

“She’s breathing,” he said, and in spite of the paleness of his face his voice was even. “She’s hurt. Something tore her neck open.”

Erskine’s stomach lurched and he motioned Blair to cover the prisoners, and went to Alice himself, pulling her up on his lap and turning her head to the side to look at the wound. It had partly clotted, though the fall had torn it open and it was now bleeding, but sluggishly. Even with the mess Erskine identified it right away.

Anton came back toward them, still watching the end of the hall. “Clear for the moment,” he said, “and there’s a cell around the corner where the floor is cracked. Detective Digger is in there.” Erskine jerked and his head snapped up, and Anton held out a hand. “She’s alive,” he said. “Unconscious. There were a pair of syringes beside her.”

“Sanguine’s cell,” said Erskine, too calmly. “Scarab’s companion was Dusk. Officer Owens been Infected.”

“Dusk would have had to enter through the dimensional bridge.”

“Either he made a deal with the insurgents or he killed their guards. I’m banking on the former in some way—this was planned, Anton. They even anticipated I’d call _you_.”

It sent a chill down his spine, how well someone must have known him, known _them_ , to be able to predict that enough to send Scarab to Anton’s Hotel. From the way Anton’s mouth drew tight, he had the same feeling, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it now. Erskine shifted and tried to pull Alice up into his arms, and his bad one complained; with a stifled grunt Erskine lowered her down again and motioned for Blair to take her instead. Then, checking his pistol was still ready, Erskine nodded to Anton to continue to Digger’s cell so they could collect her as well.

They didn’t meet anyone else in the halls until they reached the guard booth on the other side, still with the body of the guard whose throat Dusk had ripped out, and the ready team Khutulun had sent down after them.

 

“Is she going to be okay?” Blair asked as he watched the healers rush Alice’s gurney away. He’d already tried to follow. He’d already been stopped. Digger had been rushed off as well, but from what the healers had said she wasn’t in any immediate danger—beaten and magicless, thanks to the same serum that had kept Sanguine locked up, but not about to die.

Erskine looked at Blair, his pale face and gaze focussed the only place it should be, and tried to remember being so young. “She’s been Infected for a few hours,” he said. “That’s better than some. They needed her ID to get into the prison, and they sacrificed chaos for speed, so they won’t have used her too much aside as a distraction.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

Not so young anymore. Erskine realised he was kneading the scar on his palm, and took a deep breath, and forced his hands down. “She might be,” he admitted. “More likely with friends like you to help her through it. That sounds trite, and you won’t see much reward for it right away, but it’s true. Believe me, it’s true.”

Something in his voice finally made Blair look at him and there was a question in his eyes, one Erskine wasn’t prepared to answer. His throat had closed up at the thought of trying. Instead he squeezed Blair’s shoulder and almost mustered a smile and then turned and walked away, trying not to move too fast. Trying not to make it seem like he was trying to run away from the hospital, from Alice, from the Infection _._

Everything smelled sterile. It was a sharp smell. Or maybe that was the blood, the dried blood still on his clothes.

Anton was giving a report in the precinct across the way. Erskine slapped the sigil for the right floor and sank back against the wall as the elevator took him up through the hospital. His chest was tight but everything seemed at several removes and there was a roar in his head he couldn’t quite shake.

_“Please don’t! Please! Keep him away!”_

Adrenaline. Had to be adrenaline. It had been a while since he’d been in the middle of a battle.

_No, it hasn’t, it’s only been a year._

_“Don’t let him near me!”_

The doors dinged open and Erskine went out into the arcade. There were people around but he couldn’t quite focus on their faces and they gave him wide berth, and they were whispering. They were always whispering.

_“Please don’t kill me! Erskine, please!”_

He found the stairs and went down them and the roar in his ears grew louder, until he couldn’t tell if the ringing in his head was the whisper of people around him or screams. Everything was … very distant.

_That’s a bad thing, you know._

_“Please don’t kill me!”_

Something clapped down on his shoulder and he jerked and spun and snapped his fingers, and was surprised when flames leapt readily to his hands, but he didn’t hesitate, because you didn’t hesitate in the middle of battle, you _acted_ or else you’d be dead or worse—he threw the flames and the figure behind him let out a surprised cry, but he couldn’t tell whether he’d hit them or not, because they were gone a moment later.

There were others around him. Figures whose faces were a blur. He couldn’t focus enough on them to memorise their features, to recite them back to Skulduggery or Hopeless as having been there to witness him breaking.

None of them moved in, though, and Erskine couldn’t afford to attack wildly—he needed to conserve his strength, in case he came up against someone truly powerful. Or the vampire. He’d happily add the vampire’s blood to that staining his clothes.

_“Erskine.”_

Erskine spun and one of them had stepped away from the others, and stood there straight and unarmed, and if Erskine was quick maybe he’d be able to get past him. He snapped his fingers and flames roared, but there was something else beneath the roar, a sound he hadn’t heard in a very long time.

_“On the roof of the house there are bright fairies, playing and drinking under the gentle rays of the spring moon; here they come to call my child out, wishing to draw him into the fairy mound.”_

Erskine stared at the figure in front of him and it didn’t seem quite so dangerous now, because it was just _standing_ there, it wasn’t even doing anything. And the song—where was the song coming from? It didn’t match the screams.

_“My child, my heart, sleep soundly and well; may good luck and happiness forever be yours. I’m here at your side praying blessings upon you. Hushaby, hush, you’re not going with them.”_

It was Corrival’s voice. Corrival hadn’t been in the dungeon. Corrival had slain the vampires not in the dungeon—slain both of them.

_And Hopeless slew the other one._

Erskine’s head was ringing and his chest was heaving, but some of the sounds actually pierced now, the sounds of people whispering once more. The more he looked at the figure in front of him the more it looked like Anton, waiting patiently, holding his gaze and not moving.

“Erskine?” he said, very quietly, and Erskine realised he was the one who had called him that last time. He also realised he still had fire in his hands, and let it dissipate.

His heart was pounding. It was pounding so hard it had to be about to come out of his chest.

“I need Hopeless,” he said, and his voice was fraying and cracked. His skin stretched oddly and he realised that was because tears were drying on his cheeks.

“Hopeless is in Dublin,” Anton said quietly, and took a step closer, and Erskine flinched but managed not to move. His breathing was fast, and all he could smell was the blood on his clothes. “Officer Owens?”

“She—”

_She’s been Infected for a few hours. That’s better than some._

“I don’t know,” he said, and his voice cracked again, and his knees shook. “I d- don’t—”

Now his breathing was _too_ fast, so fast it made the roar in his head come back, and he bent inward and almost fell except Anton sprang forward and caught him, and eased him down. He wasn’t Hopeless but Erskine still gripped his shirt and tried to breathe, and choked on the smell of blood instead, and abruptly he couldn’t _stand_ it on him, wanted it _off_ him, scrabbled at his clothes and tore open the buttons trying to _get it off_ , and—

“Easy, easy now, boyo.” Corrival gripped his hands and clasped them in his, kneeled beside them and rubbed his knuckles and the scar on Erskine’s palm. “Shh.”

“I—” Erskine’s voice caught in his throat and came out a sob, and he tried to take a breath but that came out a sob too. “The prisoners—”

“The warden is going to take a head-count,” said Anton, and his chest rumbled against Erskine’s shoulder. “But preliminary findings are that none of the prisoners are unaccounted for, except Sanguine. None of them were released. None of them were killed.”

“They’re alive?”

Anton squeezed his arm, the arm not attached to the shoulder whose scars seemed to burn. “They’re alive, Erskine. She couldn’t get to any of them through the bars of their cells. They’re alive.”

_They’re alive._

_She’s been Infected for a few hours. That’s better than some._

_That’s better than_ me _._

Erskine put his head against Anton’s shoulder and cried, and didn’t even care that there were dozens of wide-eyed civil servants around them to witness it.


	18. Into the Sanctuary

“You didn’t see anything else?” Valkyrie asked Weeper, trying to be patient. She didn’t feel tired anymore, exactly, but she did feel cranky now all her amusement at Saracen and Ghastly’s eight-armed octopus man had worn off.

“I’m telling you,” said Weeper, sounding rather desperate, “that’s it. One minute he was here, the next he was gone.”

“Right,” Valkyrie muttered. “The fact you were asleep had _nothing_ to do with that.” Weeper’s mouth opened and shut a few times and Valkyrie sighed. “Never mind. If you remember anything else, tell me. Or one of the Dead Men.”

“What if I don’t remember anything else?” Weeper asked nervously.

“Then we’re all going to blame you when the Grand Mage is assassinated and Ireland is annexed by, I don’t know, vicious shrubbery.”

“Is that even possible?” Weeper wondered as she walked away, and Valkyrie had to restrain the urge to giggle so she didn’t ruin her dramatic exit. Rover always put a lot of emphasis on dramatic exits. He said that on the rare occasions you were going to do them, at least do them right.

Weeper wasn’t exactly the best audience, but Valkyrie was still training, so she’d take the opportunities where they came.

She stifled another yawn as she went around the corner, looking down at her notes. There were a lot more doodles there than she recalled an hour ago, and she didn’t remember making most of them. The coffee couldn’t be wearing off that fast, right?

Valkyrie’s phone played _Mr Wonderful_ and she answered it eagerly. “Did you find the skull?”

“Better,” said Rover smugly, and then he paused. “Sort of. Maybe. Well, you’ll like it, anyway.”

“So help me, Larrikin—”

“We found Gail.”

Valkyrie’s heart skipped and then relief rushed through her so fast that dizziness came up and turned her vision white, and she had to lean against the wall until it went away. “Is she okay?”

“She’s alive and unhurt,” said Rover. “I dunno about _okay_ , yet, but I don’t think it’ll be very long. Marr had her bound by name, so she’s a bit—” There was a rustle of a sleeve and after a moment Valkyrie realised he was motioning.

“Are you bringing her back?”

“Yep.”

“What about the skull?”

“Oh, yeah, about the skull …” Now Rover sounded sheepish.

“You didn’t find it.”

“Guild had a package with him when he came home and then left again,” Rover explained defensively. “We thought it was the skull. His car’s still here where Gail is, before Marr kidnapped him, and the package is inside. It just … doesn’t hold the skull.”

Valkyrie sighed. “So what does it hold?”

“Would you believe? A garden gnome.”

“… Guild had a garden gnome in his car.”

“I can do you one better. Guild has a _daughter_.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

“Oy. Have I ever lied to you?”

“All the time.”

“Now I’m hurt. We’ll be back soon to coordinate the search for Guild, the skull and, you know, everyone else.”

“See you soon.” Valkyrie hung up and stayed leaning against the wall, rubbing her eyes. She felt a kind of tired that reached right into her bones, so that even though her brain was mostly working it didn’t have enough energy to actually to get any of the places it needed.

Something was wrong, and she wasn’t sure what. Not just the fact that Erskine and Anton weren’t answering. Not even the fact that they didn’t know why Marr had wanted Gail. It was the skull, the Murder Skull. Valkyrie was missing something really obvious.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall, and ran over her logic again. It made sense that Marr was working for whoever was trying to stop them from rescuing Skulduggery, and it made sense that she would try to distract them by telling Guild about Hopeless and giving him the skull. It meant they had to focus on keeping the government together, instead of a rescue.

_But does it?_ part of her asked, and it sounded like Skulduggery so she listened to it.

_Of course it does,_ she argued. _Guild would freak if he knew about Hopeless._

_So?_

_So it’s a distraction._

_So why assume he’s the one with the skull?_

_Because he wouldn’t want us to get hold of it._

_Except that we would have, if he’d actually had it, because Guild is mean but he’s not a traitor. He’s on our side, most of the time. He doesn’t want the government to destabilise either._

_Very good,_ said the voice that sounded a lot like Skulduggery. _And what does that mean for Marr and her employer?_

“They wouldn’t have risked giving the skull to someone they couldn’t control, if they really didn’t want Skulduggery to come back,” Valkyrie said aloud. “Guild never had the skull, they just relied on us assuming that he _did_ once we knew about him meeting with Marr. So she would have put it somewhere else. It’s too risky trying to get out of the country with it, she’d need all kinds of visas or a private plane, and they’re easy to track.”

_Which means?_

“Which means it’s still in Ireland, somewhere. But it could be _anywhere_.”

_Not anywhere_. _Just the places Marr has been. And where do we know that Marr has been?_

“She’s been to see Guild, and she might have come into the Sanctuary to free Scapegrace—or sent someone to free Scapegrace.”

Only, Valkyrie realised with a sense of dawning excitement, why would she _want_ to free Scapegrace? Scapegrace was totally useless. He was better off as a distraction, an excuse to come into the Sanctuary, knowing they’d guess it was her, or someone sent by her, and too distracted by everything else to wonder _why_.

“Marr’s hidden the skull inside the Sanctuary,” said Valkyrie aloud, “right where we wouldn’t look. And the best place to hide a magical item is in among a whole bunch of other magical items.”

She pushed off the wall and jogged down to the Repository, and could have run except she wanted to conserve the adrenaline. The Repository was laid out in sections, but she knew them pretty well from her first year and being sent to hunt for things for her training. She was pretty sure that none of the things she’d been sent to get were actually important, and it had just been an excuse to make her _look,_ but that was okay. She knew which section held the items that had used to be alive.

The skull had to be there. Who was going to think twice about a skull in a pile of bones? Valkyrie hoped there was only one skull there—if there was more, she might have trouble telling which one was Skulduggery’s.

Like usual, the Repository was nearly empty. Valkyrie went right in and bypassed the place where the Book and the Grotesquery had once sat, and spared a tiny moment for wondering where Hopeless had hidden the Book now it wasn’t there anymore. Then she made a bee-line for the area down the end, grinning because _take that, Larrikin._

She rounded the corner and ran into someone’s back, and looked up to see an old man with very cruel eyes looking mildly startled.

“Um,” she said, and then saw Sanguine past him, and suddenly felt very cold. “You!”

“Me,” said Sanguine, and grinned at her, and it was shaky even though he was trying to look in control. “Hi there, princess. Fancy meetin’ you here, of all places.”

“You know this girl?” asked the old man as he looked down at her.

“Yep,” said Sanguine. “She’s Vex’s apprentice.”

“Hm.” The old man looked at her for a moment and Valkyrie looked back, and then they were both moving. He tried to stab her with a knife and she jumped back, shoving him with air. Sanguine sank into the floor and Valkyrie vaulted up onto one of the tables so he couldn’t grab her feet, and the old man tried to stab her _again_ so she jumped over the blade and kicked out at his head while fumbling for her emergency phone and the speed-dial on it.

The wall cracked by her ear, slower than it should have been, and that was lucky for her. She danced along the table, dodging the old man’s swipes with the knife, but her foot caught on a bone way too large for a human and her phone went flying.

She snapped her fingers and threw fire at the old man and he pulled back with a howl of pain, and then the edge of the table was there so she lunged off it and hit the floor rolling, snatching up her phone. The minute she was on her feet again she sprinted down the Repository, weaving from side-to-side so Sanguine would find it more difficult to pull her down into the ground, and punched Dexter’s speed-dial.

“Sanguine’s in the Repository!” she bellowed, and the ground cracked under her foot but she kicked and groped for a bureau of some kind and it wobbled, so she yanked it over right where Sanguine should have come up into the air. Her lungs burning, she collided with the wall to stop herself and head back the way she’d come, her ear filled with Dexter’s Irish curses.

“So’s the skull,” she added breathlessly, and shot back into the human-remains part of the Repository in time to see the old man pick up a skull from a pile and whirl on her, looking furious. Valkyrie dropped her phone and shoved the air behind her and for just a moment she was flying low across the floor. She collided with the old man and he hit the floor with a sharp crack and a scream, but she was going so fast that she rolled right over him and down the room.

When she finally stopped Valkyrie turned over with a groan and saw the skull tumble to a halt only a few feet away. Her whole body was aching and something hurt in her side but she forced herself to her feet and flicked her fingers and Sanguine’s hand thrust out of the floor to close on nothing at all. Valkyrie lunged for the skull and caught it around the eyeholes, and kept running.

The lights turned red and a klaxon began to peal, and Valkyrie heard the emergency doors Guild had installed slam shut. One of them left a breeze on the back of her neck, and she felt the thud vibrate the soles of her shoes.

But they wouldn’t stop Sanguine, Valkyrie knew, so she kept running, even when her throat burned with the taste of blood and her side jabbed with pain, until she saw the Cleavers’ grey uniforms come around the corner.

 

Tanith took the final stretch of the stairs in a few leaps and moved down the hallway to China’s library at a quick pace but with her hand on her sword. Gracious and Donegan were following a few leads of their own, trying to track Marr’s journey from England, and Fletcher was playing taxi for them. They were looking for Scapegrace, too, wherever _he_ might have been—starting with where he’d ‘escaped’ Sanctuary custody the first time.

But Dexter had mentioned that China might know more about both of them—something about China having taken care of the problem Crux posed. He’d said it while looking very sour but resigned, and Tanith had a suspicion she didn’t want to entertain only because she didn’t want to think Vex would be party to that. Even though it probably hadn’t been by choice.

She reached the door and knocked, and shifted uneasily from one foot to another while she waited. She knocked again. Eventually the door opened and China’s butler was behind it, but his eyes were tight and Tanith couldn’t recall him ever looking so tense before. She couldn’t remember hearing his name before, either.

“The library is closed today,” he said, and now Tanith definitely knew there was something wrong.

“I need to see China,” she said.

“She isn’t available to be seen.”

Tanith put her hand on the door. “Listen. I could force my way in, and then we’d all be annoyed and property would be damaged. Don’t let’s go that way.”

The butler shook his head. “I mean that literally, Miss Low. Miss Sorrows isn’t in the library. I don’t know where she is.”

A trickle of apprehension ran down Tanith’s spine. That was unusual, right? China didn’t just _vanish_. She made preparations. She left fallbacks. “She didn’t leave anything behind?”

The butler hesitated. “Are you here on behalf of the Sanctuary?”

“I’m here on behalf of the Dead Men.”

“Then there is something you should have.” He opened the door and she followed him in and waited in the main area while he went into China’s office. When he came out again he was carrying a vial and a mobile phone. “When she left, Miss Sorrows said that if she was unable to be contacted and Mister Vex or one of the other Dead Men should visit, I was to tell them she went to investigate Ravel’s dirty little secret,” he said, “and give them this.” He gave her the vial.

Tanith took it and looked at it. “Is this blood?”

“Yes.”

“Whose blood?”

“Miss Sorrows’.”

Tanith held it away from her, repulsed. “ _Why_?”

“She said,” said the butler, “that if anything went wrong with Ravel’s ambitious flights of fancy, she might need an Isthmus Anchor.”


	19. Scorn

_“You failed our master, Dreylan,” said Eliza Scorn, and Scarab stopped wincing long enough to sneer at her. He had to look up at her to do it, since she was still standing and he was reclined on a sofa, having his broken hip tended by a silent woman who kept her head down._

_“Don’t pretend you’re somehow superior to me because you happen to have our benefactor’s ear at this moment, Scorn,” he said. “I’ve retrieved my son, useless though he is, and I destroyed Ravel’s city’s link to our dimension, and we still have Guild.”_

_“All of which were merely distractions for the real target,” Scorn retorted, “which was Pleasant’s skull, and now we’ve lost it completely thanks to your bungling. A little girl, Dreylan. You lost the skull to a little_ girl _.”_

_Scarab snarled and tried to rise, and then fell back shaking to the pillows, his face pale and decrepit limbs failing him. The fury was still there, though. Impotent fury, filling his eyes. Scorn savoured it and then smiled. “Fortunately, our master is going to give you a second chance.”_

_“Our master,” Scarab said, breathless but mocking and still with a snarl on his lips. “Have you seen him, Scorn, actually seen him, or has it occurred to you that someone is taking advantage of your ridiculous belief he’s actually returned?”_

_“I haven’t needed to see him,” Scorn said dismissively, but her eyes had darkened and Scarab smiled with vicious triumph. “There are things only our master knows. He’s proven himself to me.” She rubbed her arms unconsciously, staring at the wall._

_“You’re unworthy of_ memory _of our master,” said Scarab, “if you broke that fast.”_

_Scorn’s gaze snapped to him and she smiled sweetly and kicked the sofa and he screamed when it jostled his broken hip. “As I was saying,” said Scorn, “our master is going to give you another chance. He knows quite well you’ve got a grudge against Guild. You’re going to give the Dead Men something to investigate, Dreylan, while they’d_ like _to be rescuing their friend.”_

_“And what resources am I going to use to do that?” Scarab demanded. His face was ashen and his voice wavered, but his eyes were furious still._

_“Someone we can afford to lose, obviously,” Scorn said with a shrug, turning and striding from the room._


	20. Shudder

Something roared and the windowpanes rattled hard in their frames, and Corrival’s lighter items trembled on their perches. Erskine flinched and curled deeper into his armchair. His arm had stiffened up. He kept it close to his chest.

“I think we’re about to be attacked,” said Anton, looking out the window into the sky, and after a moment Erskine managed to force himself to uncurl and went to join him. At first he didn’t see anything, but then there was a glint of something in the distance, circling lower. Anton observed, “It looks like a furry dragon.”

“Wait until it gets closer and it won’t be quite so cuddly,” said Erskine, and took a deep breath just as the klaxons began to sound. They made him flinch again, and Anton shifted just slightly in a tacit invitation to lean on him if Erskine needed to.

Erskine didn’t need to, even if part of him _wanted_ to. A larger part of him felt too raw to accept, as though Anton would let him down. It had been a long time since Erskine had felt as though any of the Dead Men would let him down. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. What he could do something about was this dragon. “They travel in flights,” he said to force his mind on track. “This one is either a rogue or a scout. If it’s a scout, even if it doesn’t attack it could call the rest of its flight down on us.”

“And if it’s rogue?” Anton asked.

“Then we might be lucky enough that any others are too far to smell its blood. Either way, we need to kill it.” Kneading his shoulder, Erskine turned and strode out of Corrival’s office, freshly changed but still struggling to pretend at composure. His face felt tight and ached when he frowned or laughed or smiled, so it was just as well he didn’t feel like any of it. Anton followed, but Erskine didn’t look around—instead there came another roar and Erskine quickened his pace, moving down toward the precinct.

There was havoc in the corridors, and a semi-orderly line of people moving lower down the tower. It was standard procedure against the large-sized hostile creatures this universe happened to have. When Erskine reached the precinct it was in even more of an uproar, so much so that he had to wade through the crowd before they noticed his face. Some of them pulled back like they’d been shocked. Others just reacted with the standard deer-in-the-headlights awe.

A piercing whistle cut through the tumult and Erskine turned and saw Corrival beckoning him from the offices, and it drew the attention of enough people that he didn’t need to fight to get there.

“The mayors are heading back to their districts over the water,” Corrival said as soon as Erskine was in earshot, “and the governor is being taken to her safehouse. Khutulun is heading downstairs to organise procedures somewhere safe.”

“The shield?” Erskine asked.

“Sabotaged. They’re already working on it but in the meantime we still have to take care of the, ah, dragon.” Corrival wore the exact expression most of them did up until they got used to having actually witnessed some analogous being—incredulous doubt.

“Furragons aren’t all that easily taken care-of,” Erskine muttered. “Where do they need help?”

“They want you to head the team to take care of it.” Corrival paused. “You call them furragons?”

“It seemed funny at the time.” Erskine looked behind him to ask Anton for help, but Anton wasn’t behind him anymore, and Erskine blinked, scanning the crowd in case Anton had gotten caught behind someone. Which was ridiculous; the only person who could open a crowd faster than Anton when he really wanted to open a crowd was Skulduggery, and he cheated by being a skeleton.

“Where’s Shudder?” Corrival asked, and Erskine felt the cold seizing terror in his limbs before he realised what it meant, or even how stupid the feeling actually was. Then he forgot to answer as he ran for the stairs up into the arcade. It was crowded with people trying to find their way off the Deck, and Erskine had to fight to get through. The guards at the entrances were too busy trying to organise the citizens to notice anyone coming back the other way.

The furragon’s wings cast a regular boom through the air above the city, like a distant but never-ending thunderclap. Those still out on Deck looked nervously upward, but they were mostly public servants clustering around the tower, and the majority were wearing the uniforms of the ferryhands.

“Anton!” Erskine shouted, and saw him striding toward the edge of the Deck while looking up into the sky. Erskine’s gut turned over. Could the gist take on a dragon? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to know. He wasn’t even sure why he was so afraid, except that he couldn’t bear the thought of Anton dying by dragon in a universe that wasn’t even his because Erskine couldn’t protect his own people. “ _Anton_!”

The dragon’s roar completely drowned Erskine’s voice. It was starting to wheel low, getting the lay of the city and the threats that might be upon it, wary because the city was alien but confident because it was a bloody damned _dragon_. Its wing-beats boomed above the tower. The tower shook and Erskine staggered and sigils sounded high-pitched around the rim of the Deck as they caught the backlash of air.

The gist’s shriek was higher, high enough to cut right through the wind and the wings and the tower’s creak. Erskine caught himself on his hands before he hit the Deck and looked up, and saw the gist meet with the dragon’s head, and the dragon’s head jerk, and then the dragon’s head falling away from its neck.

Its body spasmed and its wings and legs hit the side of the Deck as it plummeted. Stone and metal crunched and debris fell away from the tower, following the dragon down toward the Green. Anton staggered as he reeled the gist back, but something was wrong; it was taking too long, and the dragon hit the Green with a blow that made everything shake. The Deck’s pylons creaked and snapped, and the stone fell away in pieces. As Erskine watched the floor gave way beneath Anton’s feet and he vanished in a cloud of dust.

Erskine ran toward it, felt the Deck unstable under him and didn’t care. There were figures in the dust, people he didn’t know, and he lifted his hands and swept away everything blocking his sight, and saw a dozen uniformed Elementals holding up the fragments of the Deck’s stone plating with air. Four others were already at the edge, another two stepping quickly but carefully over the fragile ground, and past them Erskine saw Anton clutching the edges of the broken Deck over a two-hundred foot drop.

The ferryhands reached him, got a rope around his shoulders, got him back on ground and linked to them and the stable part of the Deck by a long line of rope. One by one they climbed back toward the Deck, and Anton’s knees gave out and someone caught him and lowered him down to sit.

“Medic!” someone shouted, but Erskine didn’t care to find out who. He dropped to his knees and yanked Anton into the hug Erskine had refused five minutes earlier, and Anton grunted with the force of it.

“What the _bloody hell were you thinking_?!” Erskine shouted in his ear, and Anton grunted again. Erskine couldn’t tell which of them was shaking harder, except that he had the vague thought he might stop if he gripped Anton tightly enough. “I said _we_ had to kill it, not that _you_ had to kill it! You idiot! Do you _want_ me to have to go back to Rover and tell him I got his best friend killed?!”

“Erskine—” Anton began, and then he coughed, and it _felt_ bad—it felt like the sort of cough that happened when someone was injured internally. Erskine pulled back and pushed Anton upright and looked him over, searching for broken bones he’d missed and might have hurt.

Anton was paler than usual, and there was sweat on his brow, and most importantly there was a bloody hole in his chest. Erskine stripped off his coat and pressed it to the hole, and felt his ribs shift under the pressure, and Anton grunted again. Someone else had kneeled to brace Anton against them, but Erskine didn’t pay attention to who. He had bigger things to worry about. Like the hole in his friend’s chest where the gist had come out.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Erskine heard himself say, and where just moments ago his voice had cracked and been on the edge of tears, now it sounded frighteningly calm. “The gist doesn’t leave injuries like this.”

“The Faceless One last year,” Anton whispered, and the edges of Erskine’s vision started to grey, and he realised belatedly that breathing was a necessary measure. He inhaled, slow but unsteady, and then exhaled, and inhaled again, and tried speaking.

“You haven’t used the gist since then,” he said, and it was an obvious thing to say, so obvious that Anton didn’t even answer it. Of course he didn’t. He needed to focus on staying conscious.

Anton didn’t get hurt like this. Anton was meant to be indestructible.

 _Except,_ Erskine thought, _to the gist._ They just hadn’t thought it would be quite so literal.

Movement around them had increased, but it wasn’t until Erskine heard Corrival’s carrying bellow that he realised why. He didn’t move anyway, even when others kneeled next to him and took Anton’s weight, and their voices soared over his head. Someone took his elbow and tried to pull him away and he snarled at them so fiercely they flinched back.

“Erskine,” said Anton, breathing and watching him in his stoic Anton way, his eyes half-closed. His voice, already so naturally hoarse, sounded like gravel. “Go and save your city.”

“My city can take care of itself,” said Erskine, and he was fairly sure a corner of Anton’s mouth lifted.

“Then let it take care of us too. That’s—what you built it for, is it not?”

Erskine swallowed and his eyes burned and abruptly all the fight went out of him, and he let the medics take over the pressure, let someone help him to his feet and lead him numbly out of the crowd. It was Corrival’s hand on his shoulder, he was dimly aware, but mostly all he could do was watch the medics load Anton— _Anton_ —onto a stretcher and take him over displaced ground toward the inside tower.

Then Erskine looked up at the clear, clear sky and took a deep, slow breath, and held it. They were in another dimension and Anton’s gist was broken, and he’d nearly gotten himself killed defending a city he hadn’t known had existed until that morning. Even when Erskine tried to build something the Dead Men wouldn’t have to defend, they wound up defending it, on the basis of nothing more than—what? The fact that Erskine had built it? The fact that its existence proved something Anton had been dreaming for two centuries?

The fact that they were Dead Men, and that was just what they did, and as long as they did they couldn’t be broken?

Erskine should have told them earlier. He should have told them _years_ ago. They deserved the chance to have spent some time with it before being asked to defend it. It wasn’t fair, making Hopeless and Dexter carry that secret alone.

Corrival’s palm struck the back of Erskine’s head and it jolted him, and Erskine came aware of his surroundings. The people talking, the stone groaning, the dust in his nose. He looked at Corrival, and Corrival’s face flickered, but Erskine didn’t stop to wonder exactly what kind of expression he was wearing.

“I need to talk to China,” he said instead. “I have an idea.”

“About how to handle more dragons,” said Corrival, “or how to get us back home?”

Erskine turned toward the tower. “Getting home is simple, Corrival. All we have to do is make an invisible link tangible.”


	21. Things get worse

“Sanguine is back,” Dexter repeated flatly.

“Yep,” said Valkyrie.

“ _Sanguine_. Is back.”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

“Sanguine is supposed to be locked up.”

Valkyrie threw up her hands. “Don’t look at me! I’m just investigating Marr! I thought _you_ were investigating—that.”

“I don’t want Sanguine to be back,” Dexter muttered, and his words were almost lost under Rover’s squeal.

“Hey, look!” Rover shoved the skull under Dexter’s nose until Dexter didn’t have any choice but to look. “It still has the wax inside from when we dressed him up as the Grim Reaper that Halloween!”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Ghastly. “The wax is red. We didn’t use red candles during Halloween.”

“Just there!” Rover tilted the skull and pointed, and Dexter felt Ghastly and Saracen at either of his shoulders, peering in.

“It’s blue,” said Saracen.

“It’s red there.” Ghastly pointed into the other socket.

“Skulduggery still has wax from being the Grim Reaper _and_ the poker game when we used his head as a candlestick stuck in his skull!” Rover sighed and cradled the skull to his chest. “Good times.”

“But the red wax was from the time you used his head in an audition for _Hamlet_ ,” Saracen objected.

“Are we sure they’re older than we are?” Fletcher asked Valkyrie, but Dexter didn’t hear her reply because his phone rang and he stepped away to answer it, pushing between Saracen and Rover while they argued.

“Someone’s taken my husband,” was the first thing Dexter heard, and it took him a moment to recognise the panicked voice as belonging to the collected young woman he’d met just an hour ago.

“Mrs Guild?” he asked, startled because how had she found out so fast? The conversation behind him quietened.

“I went out for some errands and just came back, and someone brought a package to my doorstep and—Mister Vex—my husband’s finger is inside.” Now she sounded tearful, as though she was only just holding it together, while Dexter suddenly felt energised. Also, mildly ill. He probably should have eaten something when he had the chance.

Dexter put the phone on speaker and turned, and saw Hopeless signing for the others. “Is there anything else in there?”

“There’s a note,” said Guild’s wife. “It said to ring you. It even had your number on it. It said they want the Murder Skull for my husband’s safe return, and they want it within the hour.”

Damn. Double damn. Dexter looked at the others and sober faces looked back, and Rover held the skull closer as if cuddling it would save them. “I’m sending someone over to pick it up,” said Dexter into the phone. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Can you save Thurid, Mr Vex?”

“Mrs Guild—”

“If you can’t promise to save him—”

“Ma’am, we were already working on finding Thurid. The fact that they sent you the note means they want our attention.” And neatly ensured that they couldn’t just dismiss the demand, not that they would have—but now Guild’s wife knew the circumstances and the Dead Men couldn’t just dismiss _her_. “Did you see the person who brought the package?”

“He’s still here.”

“He’s still—what?” Listening hard, Dexter could hear the chink of porcelain.

“He came in for tea,” said Guild’s wife. “He said he couldn’t leave until you came to get Thurid’s—the package.”

“Are you in danger?”

For a moment Guild’s wife didn’t answer, and then she said very quietly, “He has a very big knife.”

“Do you know him? Did he give you his name?”

“Vaurien. Vaurien Scapegrace.”

_‘You have got to be kidding,’_ Valkyrie signed.

“I’m coming over right now,” Dexter told Guild’s wife, very firmly. “Try not to get too close to Scapegrace if you can help it. Although if you do, hit him over the head with a rolling pin. That should do the trick.”

“He moves very fast, Mr Vex.”

_‘HE moves fast?’_ Valkyrie signed more emphatically, and Dexter hesitated.

“Just be careful. We’ll be there soon.” He lowered the phone and disconnected the call, and said to Fletcher, “I need you to take me as close to Nashville Drive in Howth as you can.”

“We’re not actually giving them the skull, are we?” Valkyrie demanded.

“They knew which skull was Skulduggery’s in the Repository,” Saracen pointed out. “Rover’s not the only one who noticed the wax.”

“I was going to say that,” Rover whined, and turned to Valkyrie. “I’m completely right. They’re not going to be fooled by a fake.”

“And we can’t just let Guild be held hostage,” Ghastly added. “He’s a Sanctuary Elder.”

_‘It begs the question,’_ Hopeless signed, _‘exactly who wants Skulduggery to stay where he is so badly.’_

For a moment they were all silent, glancing at each other and the floor. It was true that Skulduggery wasn’t well-loved in a lot of circles, but he was well-respected. Even Guild, beyond his personal distaste, argued against rescue because of the threat posed by the Faceless Ones—which was a perfectly legitimate threat.

“Maybe it’s not about leaving Skulduggery where he is,” Rover suggested. “Maybe it’s about trying to divide our forces so much that the Faceless Ones can get through when we do try to open a portal.”

“Then they would give us the chance to _make_ a portal before asking for the skull,” Saracen said.

“We can’t actually _give them_ the skull!”

“We won’t have to,” said Dexter quietly, and took the skull, and put it on Hopeless’s desk, and looked at it from every single angle. He put one hand on the skull and held out the other, and closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly, pushing away all the lingering worry over Erskine and Anton and Skulduggery to visualise the skull in his head.

It wasn’t organic. It couldn’t be organic, because he couldn’t conjure organic objects. But he could conjure things that looked a damned lot like them—when he was emotionally stable enough to do it. The heat formed in his palm and Dexter extended it down to the desk, and smelled timber singe when the energy gathered too fast to control. He cut off the magic and the beam died.

“Dex—” Ghastly began.

“I can do this,” Dexter interrupted, and took another deep breath. If he focussed, he could do this. Particles were particles and shouldn’t be controlled by the instability of emotion. He should be able to do this anytime he wanted, not just when he needed it least. He’d spent a decade practising while Rover was a statue the first time. He’d spent the last two years studying while the Dead Men were broken up. He should be able to do this by now—be able to manipulate the particles he was already generating, and turn them into _something_.

This time Dexter gathered the magic more slowly, until his palm felt like it was burning, until it glowed with energy he was controlling. He felt the skull under his other hand, its texture raspy against his skin and thought of the lines of its sockets and every unique ridge in its formation. That was what he wanted, and the energy was right _there_ , flowing all around his hand, and it should have been easy to make it form a replica except that the image kept on wavering. Because he was impatient, and scared, and wanted Skulduggery back; because Erskine and Anton hadn’t been answering all morning and Dexter had no idea what had happened to them.

His hand hurt and he still didn’t let the energy go, because this should be _possible_ , damn it, he could _do this_ , and the energy deepened and deepened and he smelled something burning, and then heard Rover shouting, and there was a scuffle just over his shoulder. Dexter ignored it because something was happening that had never happened before, because in all this time experimenting with his energy-throwing he’d never actually just let it _sit_ until he could feel all the bonds _between_ the moving particles in his hand instead of just _them_.

Belatedly he realised he’d let it grow too strong, and he made to take another breath and it came out gasping instead. His heart pounded in his ribs. There was too much energy—it needed to go somewhere, and even in an office this big sending it into a wall or ceiling could kill someone. Dexter glanced over Hopeless’s desk and saw his in-and-out box, full of paperwork, and grabbed it with his glowing hand. The topmost papers started smoking, but Dexter exhaled, and filtered the magic into the box’s particles and told it to take another shape, and do it _now_ before his whole damned hand fell off—

The heat died and Dexter sagged as all the energy rushed out of him, but someone caught him before he could hit the floor. He was trembling, he knew, and he brought his hand back toward him and smelled burned flesh, and stared with numb fascination at the charred bone of his fingers, and felt nothing from it at all.

“Oh my God,” he heard Fletcher moaning in the corner, and caught the smell of vomit. “Oh my _God_.”

Then Rover’s head was blocking Dexter’s view, and his cheeks were wet with tears and his eyes were wide with horror, and suddenly Dexter wondered if he was the one shaking or if it was because Rover was trembling so violently.

“Don’t do that again,” said Rover. His voice cracked. “ _Don’t you ever do that again._ ”

“We needed the skull to rescue Skulduggery,” Dexter mumbled, and felt a pang of doubt, and he tried to sit up to see whether it had worked, because if it hadn’t then this would have been for nothing—

“Don’t move,” Ghastly ordered, and Dexter realised Ghastly was the one still holding him upright. His voice cracked too. “Don’t—it worked, Dex, we have another skull, just don’t—don’t move.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” said Dexter.

“Of course it doesn’t bloody well hurt!” Rover exploded, and his voice failed him so he took a breath, and tried to speak, and sobbed instead. Then he took another breath and wrapped his arms around Dexter’s shoulders, and hugged him so tightly that the grind of Dexter’s bones hurt worse than the burn did. Not that it was difficult, because burns this bad didn’t hurt at all, because there weren’t any nerves left _to_ hurt.

Hopeless came into view, looking very pale, and Synecdoche was with him, so Dexter made a little wave with his good hand. She didn’t notice, because she was staring horrified at his _bad_ hand. “Move,” she said, and pushed Rover away, and kneeled by Dexter’s side. “What happened?”

“Conjuration went awry,” said Saracen far too calmly. Dexter looked up at him and Saracen looked grey, but he looked back evenly, and Dexter wondered what had happened in that timeline Saracen had just erased to let this happen instead.

“Energy-throwing to conjure,” Synecdoche muttered, and shook her head. “I’m going to demand all your notes, Vex. This can’t be healthy.”

“What, the part about burning off my own hand?” Dexter asked. “Why would you say that?”

Rover shook him. “Don’t you dare even joke about this.”

“But I want to.”

Rover made a choking noise and buried his head in Dexter’s shoulder.

“He’s right,” said Synecdoche. “This isn’t a laughing matter. I don’t know if I can heal this completely. I don’t think Professor Grouse could heal this completely, but you’d better call him anyway, because you’ll need him for the best results.”

“Better send Fletcher to get him,” said Dexter, “because I need to go and negotiate with terrorists over the life of our Elder within the hour.”

“You can’t go anywhere except a hospital wing.”

“They put my number down specifically,” Dexter insisted, but he was looking up at Hopeless, now. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t,” said Saracen. “You need to deal with this ‘that’ thing that you and Valkyrie were talking about, _after_ you’ve had your hand remade. Valkyrie and I will go handle Scapegrace and Guild. Ghastly and Rover will deal with our prior engagement.”

Dexter opened his mouth to argue and then closed it again and nodded mutely, because when Saracen said something had to happen a certain way, you _didn’t_ argue. Not unless you liked being dead. Dexter preferred not being dead.

“Good,” said Synecdoche. “Where’s this Fletcher person, then? We need to go.”

“I’m here,” said Fletcher weakly, staggering in their direction and looking very green, and with a hand hovering near his mouth. His gaze caught once on Dexter’s hand and then skated all around it. “Where to?”

“The Hibernian Cinema,” Saracen ordered. Ghastly pried Rover off Dexter and Synecdoche helped Dexter stay upright, and then Fletcher touched their shoulders and they vanished from Hopeless’s office.

 

Tanith got off her bike and abandoned it in the Sanctuary garage, and hurried in through the doors with the vial clutched in her hand. She’d left Dexter a message to say she was coming back, but he hadn’t answered. At the worst she could give the vial to Hopeless.

But that wasn’t necessary, because she rounded a corner and almost ran right into Ghastly and Rover coming the other way. Rover was sniffling and rubbing his face on a sleeve, and clutching a package close, and Tanith’s heart skipped. “What happened?”

“Dexter was an idiot,” said Ghastly, and he looked pale too, his scars standing out on his face.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s alive,” said Ghastly simply, which wasn’t encouraging at all. “But he’s with Grouse right now. What’s wrong?”

Damn it. Dexter was the one who’d been coordinating most of their efforts, and China’s butler had said the vial was meant to go to him. If Dexter wasn’t even in the condition to coordinate—Tanith shook her head. “I went to see China about Marr, and she’s gone somewhere she thinks she might need an Isthmus Anchor,” she said, and gave Ghastly the vial. “She said something about Ravel’s flights of fancy.”

Ghastly looked as baffled as Tanith had felt, and when he looked at Rover, Rover just shrugged. “Am I my husband’s keeper? They’ve been spending a lot of time together. Maybe they’re working on a surprise for Skulduggery. Maybe they’re working on a surprise for _me._ Or maybe they’re just cheating on me.”

“Or maybe it has something to do with the ‘that’ Saracen was talking about and Dexter and Valkyrie aren’t telling us about,” said Ghastly, but he pocketed the vial, shaking his head. “We’ll have to deal with it later. Guild’s been kidnapped by Marr and they’ve demanded the skull back within—” He looked at his watch. “—the next forty-five minutes or they’ll do something terrible. Saracen and Valkyrie have gone to handle it.”

“You’re not actually giving over the skull?” Tanith demanded.

“We can’t let them keep an Elder hostage,” said Ghastly, but there was something apologetic in his expression, and his gaze flickered from side to side as if to indicate the other people in the halls. Something was up, something they couldn’t afford others to know about. “Call Fletcher and get him to give you a lift. And the Monster Hunters, if you can find them. Give Saracen and Val some back up.”

“Where are you going?”

“To handle a prior engagement,” said Ghastly simply, and Tanith glanced at the package Rover was holding and nodded, and stepped back.

“Good luck,” she said as they passed, and Ghastly gave her a warm smile.

“We don’t need luck,” said Rover with a wobbly grin. “We’re the Dead Men.”


	22. The sit-down

China was downstairs in the research facility, ‘helping’ with the bomb and the shield’s reconstruction. Erskine didn’t go to her. He sent down Blair and Modeste, two people he knew were able to handle China’s magic, and had them bring her to him under guard. It was petty, perhaps, but he had no intention of letting China think she could walk all over the laws of the city, or forgetting her place in it: the fact that she didn’t _have_ any.

Adaeze had given him permission and authority over the return efforts. Emergency powers, she’d said, though general opinion seemed to be that he hardly needed to _ask_. He had anyway, if only so the trick he was about to play on China was officially sanctioned … mostly.

“I admit, I’m impressed with the quality of your recruits,” China said as she entered the Midnight Hotel, sweeping through the door in front of Blair and Modeste as though they were escorts and not guards. Blair was red, likely due to bashfulness, but not the sort to which China was accustomed. Then Erskine wondered whether China realised she was encased in an extremely believable illusion which blocked most of her magic’s influence. Probably not, or she’d have led with something else.

“You haven’t looked in the mirror lately, have you?” he asked with a straight face, and felt a surge of vicious satisfaction when her brow furrowed. He glanced at Modeste and although her own customary illusion had been sacrificed to establish the one around China, Erskine could see the satisfied smile through the day-old stubble. “I’m giving you a bonus,” Erskine told her.

China’s eyes narrowed and Erskine smiled sunnily and resisted the urge to clasp his hands behind his back. One of the medics had seen to him while he was waiting, and the pain in his shoulder had returned to a dull ache—but only as long as he kept it slinged and resting for however long he could manage. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” said China delicately.

“You knew you were coming into another dimension,” said Erskine. “You would have made sure you had an emergency exit in case something went wrong. You left an Isthmus Anchor, didn’t you?”

“I admit, I made preparations,” China said with an elegant shrug, moving to an armchair and sitting in it as if she was the queen of the Hotel. “But it seems something of a pity to leave such a beautiful city when I could, of course, do something about saving it.”

“That, and you know Dexter and Descry would have your head when they found out you’d left the rest of us to die.”

“Nothing so plebeian, I assure you. Wherever did dear Anton go?”

“Elsewhere,” said Erskine flatly.

“What a pity. I’m quite willing to help you save your city, Erskine—for a fair exchange of services, of course.”

Erskine nodded as though he was considering it, even though he wasn’t and China _knew_ he wasn’t. “Let me guess. You want full immunity to the laws relating to sigil-creation in the city.”

China smiled. “You know me so well.”

Erskine smiled back. “Let me tender a counter-offer. You help us, China, and when the whole city is safely home I’ll have Modeste remove the illusion she’s put on you.”

China’s eyes flickered in Modeste’s direction, and Erskine knew she was connecting the name to the slender, androgynous special-operations agent she had met earlier and comparing it to the slender but obviously male person behind her. “What illusion?”

Wordlessly, but without losing his smile, Erskine handed her a mirror. China took it, looked into it, and went very still, her face losing all expression. “You didn’t even notice it going up, did you?” Erskine asked, still smiling himself. “Because Modeste has become very, _very_ good at maintaining one illusion no matter _what’s_ going on around her. It fits like a glove. How long since you took it down before today, Modeste?”

“Fifty-seven years,” said Modeste in her quiet voice.

“Fifty-seven years,” Erskine repeated. “And now all that considerable attention is focussing on maintaining it around you, China. How long do you think it would take even you to break an illusion that strong?”

China looked up at him wordlessly and he could tell by the way her lips had compressed that she was furious, and he revelled in every single moment of it. Then she smiled unexpectedly, the smile of someone trying to be gracious in their defeat and all the while planning revenge. “You’ll take it off when the city is safe?”

“On my grave.”

“Given the way the Dead Men throw themselves toward death,” said China, “I’m not sure I think much of that oath. But very well.” She rose and dropped the mirror onto the floor and ground her heel into it until it shattered and the glass was so much dust. “What do you need me to do? My Isthmus Anchor would hardly open a doorway large enough for the whole city to pass through.”

“We’re going to use your Isthmus Anchor to communicate with the others, to set up on the other side,” said Erskine. “But we won’t need it for the city at large.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean.”

Erskine smiled again. “The city _is_ an Isthmus Anchor, China. The stones we use as dimensional keys are from this dimension, taken from the city itself.”

“That seems rather dangerous,” China observed, watching him without blinking. “The keys could be anywhere.”

“We’ve got the Midnight Hotel,” said Erskine. “We can go right back to where we were using its translocational wards, assuming you and Anton can edit them. But we’ll need to establish our dimensional bridges fast once we do, and for that we need to know where Creyfon is, and for _that_ I need to talk to Dexter.”

“Ah.” China smiled. “And now we’re back to my previous question: where _is_ dear Anton?”

“Can you do it?” Erskine asked, ignoring that question and resisting the urge to clench his hands.

“Of course.”

“Then you’d better get started before the next dragon attacks.”

It was, Erskine couldn’t deny, satisfying to get one up over China in such a way. He left her with Blair and Modeste, sketching up a circle in the Hotel’s lobby, and went back to Central’s tower, this time aiming for the hospital. He reached the entrance and his nerve failed, and for a few minutes he stood there at the door. There someone came through from the other side and glanced at him, and did a double-take, and Erskine ducked into the hospital before the man could draw attention.

The inside was too busy for anyone to notice or care that he was there. Erskine was grateful for that. It meant if he kept his head down and walked quickly, no one stopped him as he went to Digger’s room and stepped in. She had a private room—for now—and the noise outside dulled when he closed the door and crossed to sit by her bed.

She looked grey and exhausted, and at first Erskine thought she was asleep. Then she opened one eye the barest amount and then closed it, and grunted. “M’not your sleeping beauty.”

“You’re no one’s sleeping beauty,” said Erskine.

“Remind me to kick your ass for that.”

“Only when you can stand again.” Erskine took a deep breath, and Digger shifted just enough to watch him, her hollow eyes barely visible through thin slits. Even the dim light was a little too bright for her without her sunglasses.

“You want to know about the Yanks,” she said.

“Has anyone interviewed you yet?”

“You blokes have been too busy,” she said, and it was too weak to even be a reprimand. She wasn’t wrong, either. Without knowing just when Digger would regain consciousness, there was too much to do to have someone sit on her until she woke up. “Signate? They were talking ’bout him.”

“Gone,” Erskine admitted, and Digger grunted her lack of surprise. “They needed him to get out. Why did they take you?”

“Opportunity,” said Digger. “Was arranging to bring some of the Children downstairs, and figured I’d ask after some of your bloke Scapegrace’s old friends. Some of ’em had been in and out of rehab for years. The old codger who took me was damned demanding about why I was asking.”

Erskine didn’t answer while he turned that over in his head. Dexter had said Scapegrace was working with Crux, and Crux had been working for someone else, unidentified. If Scarab had been that interested in knowing why _they_ were interested in Scapegrace, it indicated a link. What kind of link, Erskine had no idea, except that now he suspected he knew where all Scarab’s information about the Tír had come from.

“What did you find out about Scapegrace?” he asked at last.

“Nothing, before I got ambushed.” Digger sounded disgusted, and Erskine had to smile. If anyone knew how to handle a burrower, it would be the father of one. “But I did hear Scarab sayin’ something about ‘their old master’.”

For a moment Erskine felt as though every nerve in his body had been supercharged. His hands shook and he clenched them into fists. “Mevolent?”

“He didn’t name names,” said Digger, and her eyes had closed properly now. He hoped she hadn’t seen his reaction and felt bitter that she hadn’t at once, and hated both emotions. “And he sounded like he was swallowing a lemon when he said it, so whoever it is, he doesn’t like ’em or doesn’t believe what he’s been told. Could be someone’s using Mevo’s name to bring his people together.”

“It doesn’t really matter how they’re doing it,” said Erskine tightly, “as much as the fact they’re doing it at all.” And had been for a year. The Dead Men had already known someone was trying to get in the way of rescuing Skulduggery—they just hadn’t realised it involved many people on Mevolent’s side. After Serpine’s death, his old contacts had slunk back into the shadows.

But why now? Which of them other than Serpine would care enough about Skulduggery specifically to try and stop him from returning?

Erskine took a deep breath. “Anything else?”

“Somethin’ about a castle,” said Digger. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, and Erskine knew he couldn’t stay for long, as much as he’d like to. The sounds coming in through the closed door were muffled, as if the world was far away; everything was easier to handle as long as he had that distance. That was the problem. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it. Or whether he should.

_I wish Descry was here._

“Go to sleep,” Erskine said to Digger, trying to soften his voice.

“You’re not m’mother,” Digger grumbled, but it was a bare shadow of a complaint. Erskine got up and went to the door, and exited before he could second-guess himself. He didn’t know where Anton’s room was, but by ambushing a nurse in the corner he managed to get a location. As it turned out, Anton was still in one of the examination rooms. Erskine hurried there, checking his watch. China could still take a little while, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be wanted by the governor for updates.

“Mr Shudder, please sit down!”

Erskine sped up and got to the doorway, and saw Anton swaying on his feet with one hand on the wall, trying to shrug on a shirt. The nurse shot a relieved and pleading look Erskine’s way, so he stepped in and took Anton’s arm, and lowered him back to the bed.

“Sitting down doesn’t take a degree in physics,” Erskine informed him.

“The wound is healing,” Anton said, and rubbed his eyes.

“So let it heal until we need you. You’re not allowed to use the gist again, by the way.”

Anton grunted, buttoning up the shirt and, to Erskine’s relief, covering up the bandage. It was thick and bulky, made to stay on even in the middle of a fight, but it was still shocking to see. Anton exhausted himself on a regular basis, but that was different to being _hurt_.

“I need to go back to the Hotel,” said Anton. “The translocational wards—”

“We can use them to help us get back, I know.” Erskine glanced at the nurse. “Is he safe to leave? Can he rest somewhere else?”

“Yes, but—”

“I’ll rest in the Hotel. There is no need to take up a needed room here.” Anton got up again and this time Erskine was there to help him when his breath caught.

“China’s building us a portal,” Erskine told him, leading him out of the room and down the hall and ignoring the nurse’s grumble.

“What did you give her?”

“I promised I’d take off an illusion she doesn’t like.”

“You blackmailed her.”

“She was trying to blackmail me first.”

Anton grunted again and didn’t answer, and they were already out of the hospital by the time Erskine said, “Why did you do that?”

If it had been anyone else he wouldn’t have left it so vague. Even the other Dead Men, even Hopeless, would have been liable to evade the question using its own ambiguity. Anton didn’t. Anton was good like that.

“It seemed the most expedient way,” Anton said.

“And now what if we need you later on, when there’s more than one?” Erskine snapped, even though it was unfair, because Anton couldn’t have known his gist would hurt him like this. Whatever the Faceless One had done to the cord binding the gist to Anton, Grouse hadn’t been able to detect any lingering damage. There’d been no way to tell anything had been wrong at all.

Erskine tried not to think about what it might mean, but his mind was presenting him with suggestions against his will.

“I will try again, if I must,” Anton said simply, and Erskine sighed. Of course he would.

“And what if that means it’s more likely to take you over?”

“No,” said Anton, almost cutting off Erskine’s words, and Erskine steadied him as they stopped by one of the Deck’s active circles. It was almost deserted aside from a handful of guards—on hand so those who the clearance to move around the city had assistants. Just in case.

“The Green,” Erskine said to one of the ferryhands who had volunteered for the job, and waited until they were in the Green’s courtyard before asking, “Why not?”

A few hundred yards away the furragon’s body was being … dismantled … and the ground cleared. Erskine turned deliberately away and helped Anton toward the Hotel.

“Because I didn’t feel it raging against my mind when I let it out,” said Anton. “Not as I should have. And it emerged too solid—ordinarily it only gains presence while it’s released. That is what caused the injury, I think.”

Typical Anton. A hole in his chest and he was still able to control the gist. Of course, he’d spent his whole life doing that, and that wasn’t as important as the _other_ thing Anton had said.

“I’m sorry,” said Erskine, “are you saying the gist was _too real_?”

“Yes.”

“And it wasn’t fighting you?”

“It was fighting me,” Anton said. “But it wasn’t—mine.”

That made little to no sense, but since Anton was frowning as if trying to find the words himself, Erskine let it pass. The Hotel became visible between the trees and Erskine hoisted Anton up a bit further on his shoulder.

“When we get back, I’m _not_ going to be the one telling Rover you broke your dog,” he informed Anton, and heard Anton chuckle low as they made it to the Hotel’s door, and entered.


	23. Blood and bullets

“Are you ready?” Saracen asked, and Valkyrie rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath and then nodded. “Want some more coffee first?”

“If I have any more coffee I’ll have to pee in the middle of a fight and I won’t sleep tonight,” Valkyrie pointed out. It had kicked in just enough to make her feel the buzz, but not enough that her mind felt quick enough to keep up. They didn’t have any choice—Saracen needed backup, and everyone else was engaged except Tanith, who was still trying to contact the Monster Hunters.

Saracen patted her on the head. “Good girl. You’re learning the proper set of priorities.”

“Being more worried about having to pee in the middle of a battle than the battle itself?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think Descry would agree with that.”

“Descry is a know-it-all.”

“Like father, like son.”

“I should never have told you lot about that,” Saracen muttered, and moved down the street toward Guild’s house with the package holding the fake skull under his arm. Valkyrie followed, grinning and tossing her empty coffee-cup into a garbage bin sitting by the road in front of one of the houses. The grin faded the closer they got, and she was thankful when the adrenaline joined the coffee in making her feel more alert. She double-checked that the knife Saracen had given her was properly hidden under her clothes. Saracen moved with more purpose too, straightening up and moving from an amble into a proper stride. Tanith had met them there on her motorcycle, but she was covering the road until they could secure the house.

They got to the house and Saracen rang the doorbell, and a nice-looking young woman answered. She couldn’t have been much older than thirty, and Valkyrie wondered exactly what the rules were for sorcerers marrying mortals much younger than them. She looked a bit familiar too, but Valkyrie knew they’d never met before.

Mrs Guild’s face fell when she saw them and she started to say, “This isn’t a good time—”

Saracen held out his hand. “Mrs Guild. I’m Saracen Rue.”

“—oh.” Mrs Guild glanced at Valkyrie, who stood up very straight and tried to look professional, and then out at the road. “I was expecting—Mr Vex.”

“I know,” Saracen said reassuringly, “but he had to be … somewhere else. I promise, I can do nearly everything he can do. And I’m more charming.”

Mrs Guild almost smiled, but she seemed to think that Saracen was giving her some kind of message and after a moment nodded and opened the door further, giving Valkyrie another glance. “Can you show me the rest of the house, please, Mrs Guild?” Valkyrie asked, trying to sound friendly. Then she added more quietly, “I need to make sure no one else is here.”

Saracen was moving right into the living-room, but after a moment Mrs Guild nodded and led Valkyrie toward the kitchen. Valkyrie pushed her gently aside and went in first, and room-by-room cleared the rest of the house. She went to the door and used the little compact mirror Rover had given her to flash Tanith, and then said to Mrs Guild, “Stay by the door. Someone will be here in a minute to stay with you.”

Mrs Guild nodded wordlessly and Valkyrie went back into the house, following the sound of voices into the living-room.

“—and then they told me I was allowed to kill her if you didn’t show up,” Scapegrace said, sounding very disappointed. “I don’t _usually_ only kill on orders, you understand—I _am_ the Killer Supreme, after all—but for the sake of the mission and all that.”

Scapegrace was sprawled in one of the couches, drinking tea and with a knife on the seat beside him. It wasn’t just a kitchen knife, Valkyrie noticed. It was one of those big military knives. She was surprised he hadn’t stabbed himself with it yet. She’d never heard of him even carrying a weapon before. That was weird.

Saracen was in the armchair opposite, watching him. The skull was on the coffee-table between them, along with an opened package Valkyrie didn’t try to look into. Saracen gave Valkyrie a quick glance and she stopped by the hall and leaned back against the wall.

“I bet I could kill _you_ this time around,” Scapegrace told her, and picked up the knife and waved it at her. “You can’t cheat this time.”

“By having friends and family around to help, you mean?” Valkyrie shot back.

“Exactly.”

“I have him.” Valkyrie pointed at Saracen.

“He doesn’t count,” said Scapegrace. “He’s just a fake, anyway.”

“A fake?” Valkyrie glanced at Saracen. Saracen had gone back to watching Scapegrace, and there wasn’t anything on his face except a tiny furrow in his brow.

“A fake Dead Man,” Scapegrace said with a nod. “They told me all about it. About how he’s not even two centuries old, and wasn’t even involved in the war until the end.”

“Who told you _that_?” Valkyrie asked, trying to sound incredulous even though her heart was pounding. She knew all about it, of course, because it had been explained to her after Saracen had blurted out the whole thing with Hopeless being his father. But if _Scapegrace_ knew, then whoever he was working with had to know too, and that was meant to be a secret.

Scapegrace looked confused for a moment, and then adopted a superior expression and waved his hand airily. “Oh, you know. People.”

People. Right. If they were talking to anyone else Valkyrie would have thought they were lying, but this was Scapegrace. Probably they had used some kind of memory magic.

“Anyway. I’ll just be off.” Scapegrace drained his teacup and put it down and leaned forward to scoop up the skull. Saracen didn’t move even when Scapegrace picked up his knife and rose, and when Valkyrie glanced at him he shook his head. They just stood and sat there and watched Scapegrace leave. The moment he was gone Valkyrie rounded on Saracen.

“Why didn’t we do anything?” she demanded as Tanith and Mrs Guild came back into the living-room.

“Mrs Guild is right,” Saracen said. He was still frowning, and staring into the open package. “Scapegrace, sometime in the last day, has gotten very fast.”

“So we wouldn’t have been able to stop him anyway?”

“So you’d have gotten killed trying.”

Valkyrie made a face. “Killed by _Scapegrace_?”

“I know,” said Saracen. “It beggars belief, but it’s true.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I have to go.”

“Where?”

“What about my husband?” Mrs Guild cut in. “Did he tell you where he is?”

“No,” said Saracen. “That’s why I have to go follow Scapegrace, and I need to hurry. Val, call Fletcher. Ghastly and Rover shouldn’t need him again for another hour yet. Have him take Mrs Guild into the Sanctuary and then take you and Tanith to pick up Guild’s daughter. They’re going to trade in.”

He walked out before Valkyrie could ask anything, looking very distracted. Like he was trying to remember something he’d forgotten, or do what Skulduggery did and predict everyone’s movements.

Valkyrie looked at Tanith, but Tanith only shrugged, so Valkyrie turned to Mrs Guild. “Where would your daughter be now?”

“I took her to an after-school club just before Mr Scapegrace came,” said Mrs Guild, looking very pale. “At St Mac Dara’s.”

Valkyrie felt as though something very cold had dropped into the pit of her stomach, and suddenly she knew why Mrs Guild looked so familiar. It was the little curls, and the nose. “Not the sorcerer’s club?”

Mrs Guild nodded, and Valkyrie said a word the Dead Men tried not to let her hear, and rang Fletcher.

 

The moment they all appeared in the grove of trees where Valkyrie practiced her magic, she told Fletcher, “See if you can find the Monster Hunters and bring them here.”

Then she and Tanith ran out and toward the school’s doors. It was still early enough that there were a few people around—mostly teachers, but some students using the sport’s field or the gym, or some of the other classrooms for clubs of their own.

Part of her wanted to believe that it was too early, there were too many mortals around, for a sorcerer to risk anything—but images of the golf-club massacre kept running through her head. They had thought the Baron would wait then, too, and he hadn’t just because he’d known Hopeless would think he _wouldn’t_.

These people knew about Hopeless too. And they were after a sorcerer. They weren’t going to wait.

There was no time to wish any of the Dead Men were around, but at least Tanith was there. It made Valkyrie feel less alone than she had on the Tír a year ago. “Go around that way,” she ordered, pointing toward the edge of the building. “There’s another door. I’ll try and get them out this way.”

Tanith nodded and split off, and Valkyrie shoved open the doors and ran down the hall toward the room they usually used for club. No one was screaming and while she could hear people talking none of them sounded older than the senior students. Maybe they’d gotten there in time.

Valkyrie got to their room and entered hard enough for the door to hit the wall behind it. No one hiding there, then.

“Val!” Kara exclaimed, hand to her chest. Ifrit climbed to his feet from where he’d fallen off his chair with surprise, his face red.

“What the—heck are you doing?” Farley demanded. He was strict on things like swearing around Missy. Now Valkyrie understood why. It wasn’t just that she was a kid—Farley had to know whose kid she was.

There was no one else in the room. No one behind the door. Valkyrie checked the window. No one hiding behind the sill outside, either. Valkyrie exhaled slowly and then turned to face their baffled and angry stares.

“Missy,” she said calmly, even though her heart was pounding. “I need you to come with me, okay? I have a teleporter friend who’s going to take us to the Sanctuary.”

“The Sanctuary?” Henry demanded. “How come you’ve got clearance to go to the Sanctuary? You’re not even as old as Farley!”

“She’s an apprentice to the Dead Men,” said Farley, and Natalie stared at him.

“How long have you known that? Kara and I only found out _this morning_.”

Farley glared at her. “It’s obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.”

“ _Val_ is an apprentice?” Ifrit said dazedly.

“I wanna be an apprentice,” Henry whined. “That’s not fair! Her parents are nobodies! They’re not even from a clan!”

Valkyrie ignored them all and went to crouch in front of Missy, who was sitting rigid and pale in front of Farley’s beanbag. “Missy?”

“Where’s my mummy and daddy?” Missy asked in a voice that trembled, but she held her chin up.

“Your dad can’t come right now,” Valkyrie said calmly. “But your mum’s at the Sanctuary. They sent me and a friend to come get you, okay? Come on.” Valkyrie took her hands and helped her stand up and then the window exploded inward. Valkyrie covered Missy with her body and her Bespoke-tailored clothes, and didn’t feel anything but a patter against her back, but she heard the others screaming.

She also heard a swish and rolled with Missy still in her arms, and heard the floor breaking. Giving Missy a shove to get her out of the way, Valkyrie rolled back to her feet and clicked her fingers and came face-to-face with Dusk. He looked at her and she shoved him with air but he stepped forward to grip her wrist too quickly for her breeze to do anything but rustle his clothes.

Valkyrie’s knee came up and Dusk grunted, and her fingers jabbed his eyes and he let her go. Ifrit yelled something like a war-cry and Valkyrie jumped back to avoid the unexpectedly large fireball he flung at Dusk. The fire alarm went off and the sprinklers in the ceiling turned on and doused the flames, and Valkyrie’s hand shot out, and she took all the warmth away from around Dusk until the water iced over in a blast of frost.

“Get Missy away from here!” she shouted over the alarm, and caught a glimpse of Missy trying to crawl away, and Natalie staggering toward her while holding her head.

Dusk shook off the frost and moved, and Valkyrie spun and shoved the air at Missy and Natalie, and they both tumbled into the wall while Dusk appeared where they’d been.

“Do something!” Kara shouted at Farley, looking terrified and holding out her hands as they flickered and fizzed like a bad electrical connection.

“I can’t!” Farley shouted back, struggling to keep Henry from running straight into the fight in a panic. Ifrit was a few feet away, slumped and eyes wide and looking down at his burned hands.

Dusk looked around at them with the air of a man who had been asked to do something beneath him, his lip curling. “Are _you_ all the Dead Men could muster against me?” he asked Valkyrie.

“Not quite,” said Tanith from the door, and she ran up the wall and her blade flashed. Valkyrie flanked her, snapping her fingers to conjure fire and throw it at Dusk, but it fizzled in the water from the sprinklers. Dusk moved through the smoke and around the sword with ease and leapt up and punched Tanith. She fell from the wall but turned the fall into a flip, and her feet caught the ceiling instead.

“Looks like we’re all havin’ a party in ’ere,” said someone from the window, a tall gangly man in a top-hat whom Valkyrie didn’t recall having ever seen before.

“Not you,” Tanith groaned, and the man doffed his hat and snatched up Natalie.

“Just sowin’ my li’l bit of chaos,” said the man cheerfully.

“Wrong girl,” said Dusk, moving in so suddenly that he appeared by Valkyrie’s side. Valkyrie spun toward him instead of away and shoved a chunk of ice into his surprised face, and Tanith’s sword whistled down, and he was forced to duck. He kicked at Valkyrie’s knees and Valkyrie jumped and rolled past him, and got on her feet and drew Saracen’s knife to stab it in Dusk’s back. Dusk grunted and staggered, and Tanith’s sword bit into his shoulder, but he wrenched away from them both.

“Ooh, they’ve given the girlie weapons,” said the man in the top-hat. He dropped Natalie and reached for Missy, but Natalie rolled and kicked, and her foot caught him in the throat so he staggered back, gagging. Natalie got to her feet and kicked again and hit him in the solar plexus, and he doubled over wheezing. He sprang at her still bent-over, crossing the five or so feet as easily as if it was a step, and threw her against the wall. Valkyrie heard her head crack over the sound of the alarms, and she slumped.

“Where’s Fletcher?” Valkyrie shouted to Tanith, spinning and using air to yank a desk into Top Hat’s back so he went sprawling. Kara ran to Natalie and Missy, slipping on water, and Farley lunged for something behind an overturned desk.

“I sent him a text,” Tanith said, and then pointed at Kara with a sweep of her sword as she drove Dusk back. “You! Get Missy out the window!”

The wall cracked and Sanguine stepped out, and caught Kara’s arm with a smile. “Hello, princess.”

“Not _you_ ,” Valkyrie growled, bringing a chair down on the desk on Top Hat, and sending him sprawling and wheezing again. Sanguine waggled his fingers at her.

“Better hurry, boys,” he said. “Mortals’re coming.”

“Too late,” Farley snarled, and his gun glistened in the sprinkler-water as he lifted it and fired at Sanguine. Sanguine jerked, looking surprised, and Kara wrenched her arm away and fell, and scrambled toward Missy and Natalie.

“Oy,” Sanguine protested, and then touched his side. His fingers came away bloody and his face twisted. “You _shot_ me.”

Dusk abandoned the fight with Tanith and appeared by Farley’s side. Farley spun to turn the gun on him but Dusk gripped his wrist and squeezed and Farley screamed, and the gun fell. “Stop fighting,” he said to Valkyrie, “or _all_ of them will die.”

Valkyrie hesitated. Kara was sobbing and shaking Natalie, who wasn’t moving. Missy was huddled in the corner, tears streaking her cheeks. Ifrit sat rocking back and forth, clutching his burned hands to himself and looking up, but dazedly. Henry was behind him, shaking him as if that would help put him in his right mind. They’d be easy to kill. Valkyrie was surprised none of them were dead already.

“I’m gonna kill _you_ anyway,” Sanguine said to Farley, clutching his side and with his straight-razor in his other hand. He was pale and thinner than he’d been last time Valkyrie had seen him, his hair unkempt and face unshaven, and the snarl on his face twisted it until he didn’t look handsome at all. “Gods-damned mortals, getting _so_ far above your station—”

“Shove a sock in it, Billy-Ray, no one cares what you think,” said Dexter, and Valkyrie slumped with relief as Fletcher appeared beside Missy and they both vanished, and then beside Henry and Ifrit and they vanished too. She turned and saw Dexter standing in the middle of the room, his eyes bright and glittering, without a shirt or shoes and his injured hand covered in some foul-smelling muck, and listing to one side while he leaned on a desk.

But his good hand was up and glowing, and aimed right at Sanguine.

“It’s over,” he said. “Missy’s safe at the Sanctuary.” Fletcher appeared beside Natalie and Kara, and a moment later they were gone. “Is this really a fight you want to have right here and now?”

“I’m gonna kill you too, Vex,” Sanguine said. “An’ I’m gonna kill you a lot more slowly than I did your brother.”

There were footsteps in the hall. Teachers were checking the rooms for stray students. Fletcher appeared behind Dusk and swung his baseball bat. Dusk’s hand snaked up and caught it, but it was the arm Tanith had injured and he winced, and in that moment Fletcher grabbed Farley and teleported him away.

Tanith changed her grip on her sword and stepped onto the wall to cover Top Hat as he shook off the desk, eyeing her. Valkyrie stepped away to give Dexter room to manoeuvre, Saracen’s knife still in her hand.

“Get out,” said Dexter. Dusk vanished out the window almost before he had finished. Top Hat touched his brim and sprang after him. Sanguine, his glare visible even behind his sunglasses, backed toward the wall and it cracked and let him in, and then Fletcher appeared and looked around.

“Um—”

“Get us away before the teachers come in,” Valkyrie said quickly, trying to sheathe the knife and nicking herself when her hands shook, and going to Dexter. They clustered around him and Fletcher took hold of them all and in a blink they were somewhere blissfully absent of those ringing alarms, but still loud with people shouting.

Valkyrie looked around. They were in the Sanctuary hospital wing. Natalie was already on a stretcher and Ifrit was sitting dazedly while someone looked at his burned hands.

“Oh dear,” said Dexter, and Valkyrie whirled and helped Tanith catch him as he started to topple, and he smiled drunkenly up at Valkyrie. “Hi.”

“Is he drugged?” Valkyrie demanded at Fletcher.

“Yeah,” said Fletcher, his freckles stark on his pale face. “I couldn’t find the Monster Hunters, but it looked like you really needed help. I didn’t know who else to get.”

“The Cleavers would have been a good idea,” said Tanith, and they helped Dexter over to a spare bed. “Professor Grouse isn’t going to be happy.”

“Kenspeckle is never happy,” Valkyrie said, and they backed away to the wall so the healers could do their work. Something was chiming and Valkyrie didn’t know what it was until Fletcher belatedly cursed and shoved his hand in his pocket, and took out his phone.

“It’s a text from Donegan,” he said, relief all over his face, but a moment later he frowned. “I don’t get it, though.”

He showed it to them and Valkyrie’s heart pounded.

_‘Serpent’s castle’_

“Serpine’s,” she said. “He means Serpine’s, it’s the stupid phone spellcheck. Tanith—”

“Let’s go,” said Tanith. “There’s nothing else we can do here.”

“I don’t know where that is,” Fletcher protested.

“Then take us to my bike and we’ll drive,” Tanith said impatiently, fingering the hilt of her sword. She hadn’t burned off her adrenaline yet. Neither of them had.

“Oh.” Fletcher nodded. “I can do that.” He took their arms and they vanished from the Sanctuary hospital wing.


	24. Dead new world

The air was so dry and dusty that it caught in Ghastly’s throat when he inhaled. Stone crunched under his feet, and there were no animals sounds—no insects, no little mammals. Just Rover, chattering on about some very old town he’d once visited in Mexico. Ghastly glanced around at the red stone of the empty city, and the sun hanging in the sky and beating its heat down upon them, and didn’t really see the comparison.

Their portal had opened at the end of a little alley. They had expected some kind of resistance on stepping through, but there had been no one. They’d found Batu’s desiccated husk of a corpse a few streets away and left it where it was, just in case a Faceless One reappeared to inhabit it.

This was the place Skulduggery had spent the last year. Ghastly tried to think of a more appropriate label than ‘hell’, and couldn’t. He just put all his focus on systematically searching streets and alleys and long empty buildings for one recognisable bone or scrap of fabric.

But the city was huge, and Ghastly was beginning to wonder how long it would take to find anything if anything was to be found, or how long before Larrikin’s voice drew attention.

“Ghastly?”

Not that Ghastly didn’t appreciate the sound, because there was something gloomy and spooky about a city this large being this empty, and for so long that there was barely even any evidence people had lived there.

“Ghastly!”

Was Skulduggery even still cognizant enough to respond to their occasional calls? Was he still capable of even recognising that footsteps and voices meant rescue? Did he even hope?

“Oy, big-boy!”

Ghastly dragged his gaze away from the deep shadow of the open window through which he’d been looking, looking without seeing, and turned to Rover. Rover grinned and held up what he carried. “Need a hand?”

A skeletal hand. At least, the bones of a skeletal hand—along with a few ragged, bleached strips of fabric still wound through the wrist-bones. For a moment Ghastly only stared at them, because he couldn’t quite process that he was _seeing_ them. Then he snatched them out of Rover’s grasp and cradled them to his chest, and for the first time in what seemed to be hours felt something like hope. “Where did you find them?”

“Over there.” Rover pointed toward some stairs, still grinning. It faded as he added, “He must’ve been in a hurry.”

A moment later Rover was also in a hurry, following Ghastly up the stairs. They tore through the rooms at the top with all the speed of long practice and soldiers with no time to spare, and then Ghastly stopped in the doorway of one, his chest tightening so violently it took all his breath away.

“Rover,” he croaked out, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Rover.” The sound of Rover’s muttering stopped and a moment later he was peering over Ghastly’s shoulder. They stood there in silence, watching the unmoving skeleton, clad only in rags of a suit, sprawled against the wall. His ribcage lay bared to the air, and it was covered in dust. His trousers were disarrayed, the bones of his legs scattered around him as though a child had thrown up a puzzle and let the pieces lay where they’d crashed to the ground. Whatever he had been in a hurry to escape had caught up with him.

Ghastly wanted to move, and couldn’t. The clench in his chest had spread through the whole of his body. In the end Rover squeezed past him and approached the skeleton as though he was nearing an injured child, almost vibrating with the restrained desire to rush up and cuddle.

“Skulduggery?” he asked quietly, crouching and reaching out to shake his shoulder.

The skeleton sat up abruptly and yelled, “BOO!”

Rover jumped back with a shriek, Ghastly jumped and almost crushed the bones in his hand, and Skulduggery fell back cackling madly.

“That was _mean_!” Rover whined, but he was grinning as he rolled back onto his feet and bent to pick up Skulduggery’s bones and put them together.

“Of course it was,” Skulduggery said, still chuckling. “But you aren’t real anyway, so you’ve no room to complain.” He fitted the partially-completed leg into a socket with a yelp, and reached for the rest of the bones. “Granted, you’ve never travelled in pairs before, but it was only a matter of time.”

Rover’s grin faltered and he glanced back. Ghastly was still in the doorway, his heart hammering against his ribs. It had been a very long time since he’d seen Skulduggery do anything quite so undignified as that, and that wasn’t even taking into account the assertion they weren’t real. Ghastly wanted to speak to tell Skulduggery otherwise, but his throat was all locked up.

After a moment Rover turned back around to Skulduggery, who was blatantly ignoring them while he put together the remains of his legs. “Yeah, well, we are,” Rover said, crossing his arms and pouting. “And you’re a big fat meanie to say we’re not.”

“You’ve said that,” Skulduggery said with a nod. “Many, many times.”

“Well, I’m saying it again,” said Rover, “and now you’ve got to come with us before the Onesies come back and, I don’t know, take your skull. Not that it would matter, we’ve got a new one for you to wear as soon as you get home, so it’s not like it makes a difference if they _did_ —” As he spoke he stepped forward and ran into an invisible wall of air, and stepped back with a grunt, rubbing his nose.

“And now you can’t bother me,” Skulduggery said happily, sitting back against the wall with his legs all in one piece. Well, two pieces. He motioned lazily at the empty space. “Do you like it? It’s a new trick I learned.”

Rover was spluttering madly. “You—you—you—you stole Dexter’s talent! That’s unfair! That’s _appropriation_! That’s a _breach of copy-right!_ ”

“He gave me the idea,” said Skulduggery, “or I got it from one of the times he appeared, anyway, although it didn’t work terribly well because the pet just ran right through it. Not mine, though. Mine is _real_.”

“Ghastly,” Rover whined, turning to Ghastly but pointing at Skulduggery, “he’s learning new tricks without us!”

“Like you, you mean?” Ghastly asked without thinking. His voice came out rough and the sound of it made Skulduggery still. Then he seemed to shake himself and continued on as though Ghastly hadn’t said anything at all.

“Of course, it’s not much good against the _Faceless_ _Ones_ , but at least it does keep their pets away. And you, of course. It’s a bit of extra time to pull myself together.” Then he laughed at himself as if he was alone in the whole of the world, and Ghastly felt his eyes burn and tears on his cheeks.

“Skulduggery,” he said, “we’re real.”

Skulduggery stilled again, in that way that Ghastly knew was actually a flinch, and his head turned but without his eyeless sockets actually facing Ghastly. “You wouldn’t be here if you were.”

“Of course he’d be here,” Rover protested, but his voice cracked.

Now suddenly Ghastly could move, and did so feeling as though someone had taken over command of his rubbery legs. He reached the air-wall and put his hand on it, and felt the way the particles connected together. It wasn’t like the vacuum-bubbles they made to hide conversations, where there was a layer of no air at all. This was more thickness, spread out to create a barrier against solid objects. It let little things like sound pass easily enough.

“Let me through,” said Ghastly.

“No,” said Skulduggery, staring at the wall to the side, away from Ghastly. He hadn’t slumped, but it felt like it had, like some of the insane energy had left him. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it out there. I’ll listen, of course. I won’t be able to not. You’ll be, as always, entirely correct. I murdered your mother. I murdered Aoife. I murdered a lot of other people, too. It was too much to hope all that wouldn’t catch up to me. I deserve to be here.”

Rover made a choking noise. Ghastly’s chest clenched again and he felt fresh tears on his face, and didn’t care. He kneeled so he could try and capture Skulduggery’s gaze. “I have your hand.”

“Good for you,” said Skulduggery.

“Skulduggery, let me through or I’ll break down this wall.”

“You’ll _think_ you broke it down,” Skulduggery corrected. “In reality, it would break because my subconscious knows I haven’t suffered enough yet, and I took it down myself.”

“Your subconscious needs to go bathe in a pool of rancid pachyderm skunk-vomit,” said Rover, and Skulduggery unexpectedly chuckled.

“That’s a new one. I’m getting more creative.”

This wasn’t working. They couldn’t _talk_ Skulduggery into believing they were really there—he had spent too long knowing it wasn’t true. He had spent too long seeing them as hallucinations, as people condemning him. Except for Dexter, apparently, but Dexter had already known.

They should have had Dexter and Saracen come, Ghastly thought despairingly. At least Skulduggery would have accepted their help, even if he thought they weren’t real.

“We need to get out of here,” he said.

“You do that,” Skulduggery answered.

“We can’t _leave him_ ,” Rover said fiercely, and Ghastly snarled back with a jerk—

“I’m not _leaving him_!” He took a deep breath, and then another one because the first shuddered in his chest. “I’m not leaving him. But we don’t have time to convince him that we’re real. We’ll have to just take him and go.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” said Skulduggery. “That’s not the only trick I’ve learned.”

Ghastly looked at him. “You’d kill me too, Skulduggery?”

“You’re not real,” said Skulduggery, “so it’s not you I’d be killing, is it?”

Ghastly nodded. “You’re bluffing.” He put his hand on the wall and concentrated, and worked his own layers of air into the gaps. It wasn’t easy, and it was slow, but a moment later he felt Rover helping him, and within a minute the air-barrier had disintegrated. Ghastly rose and went to Skulduggery, and Skulduggery did absolutely nothing to stop his approach. He just sat there slumped against the wall, for all that he was a properly inanimate skeleton.

Gently Ghastly found the stump of his elbow and worked the joints back together, and pieced his wrist and hand together too. Skulduggery shuddered as the bones clicked back into place, the only call to pain he made. Then Ghastly put his hands under his thigh-bones, around his back, and picked him up like a child. He weighed practically nothing. He hadn’t for centuries.

And he still did nothing to resist.

“Come on,” said Rover, scrubbing his face with the bottom of his T-shirt and then tugging at the front of it. “I’m sweating like a pig.”

“You are a pig,” said Ghastly, following him out.

Rover squawked. “Excuse you. I’m not a pig.”

“Who was it who had three burgers _and_ chips _and_ a milkshake at the café yesterday?”

“I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten in a whole day.”

“Stop trying to turn yourself into stone.”

Rover grumbled wordlessly and they reached the bottom of the stairs, and then he stopped. “Um.”

Ghastly looked over his shoulder and it felt like ice had rushed through him. Batu’s corpse was shambling around the corner. Skulduggery shifted in Ghastly’s arms. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

“We’re not getting caught that easily,” Ghastly muttered back, and together he and Rover went sidling down the other side of the street. Batu watched them until they rounded a corner, and for a few moments Ghastly was wildly hopeful that it was something else inhabiting the body.

An ear-splitting shriek burst through the sky and down into the street. The pebbles trembled and Rover clap his hands over his ears.

“That would be a screech,” said Skulduggery helpfully as they backed against a wall, glancing upward as a massive winged figure swooped over them, dousing the street in a shadow as it passed over. “They’re the pets of the Faceless Ones’ pets. They ride them, you see. A big one like that can carry over a dozen.”

“A dozen what?” Rover asked, and then people were dropping into the street. They were human, or looked human, but with tattoos all over their skin where they weren’t covered in fur and leather clothes. Rover spun with a yelp and snapped out his hand, and two of them shot backwards; the third lunged and Rover stole his knife and thrust it into his chest.

Ghastly took the opening and ran down the street, and Rover followed, but the screeches knew where they were now. Their shadows kept dipping and skating over the red stone around them, and more of the riders jumped down, landing on their feet with a thud. Ghastly shifted Skulduggery to throw him over his shoulder and swept the street with his freed hand, but the riders were prepared for the blast of air this time. Some of them stepped deliberately into the brunt of it and the rest ducked them when they flew back, and came up lunging.

“You know,” Skulduggery called back as Ghastly dodged the blades and snapped his fingers and threw fire. “This would be much easier if you put me down.”

“And have our pretty prince escape?” Rover shouted back where he was covering their rear, dodging and parrying with his stolen knife. “Not a chance!”

The riders’ clothes were resistant to fire, Ghastly saw. They shook off the flames as though they were swatting flies, and came at him again. He dropped Skulduggery and both his hands came up and fed heat to the fire, and flames exploded down the street. When they’d cleared the riders staggered back to their feet, burned and hurt and fewer in serviceable number, but still enough to block the way.

Skulduggery picked himself up with a grunt, brushing himself off. “Gently,” he admonished, and then his hand snapped out and a torrent of flames jetted from it, boiling down the street in a massive, never-ending stream until there weren’t any riders left. “I’m more than a one trick pony,” Skulduggery said happily.

“This is so unfair,” Rover whined, stabbing his last enemy in the face and then coming back toward them. “Next thing he’ll be telling us he’s solved the turning-to-stone problem.”

“Oh, I did that months ago,” Skulduggery assured him, and Rover squawked, and Ghastly took Skulduggery’s shoulder and dragged him down the street. “Where are we going?”

“Home,” Ghastly told him. “Through the portal.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Skulduggery. “Though I still haven’t decided if this is a manifestation of a last hurrah of hope, or an attempt to boost my spirits before you shatter them all again.”

“Don’t fight it,” Rover advised.

“That’s what I’m trying to decide,” Skulduggery said, but he didn’t resist being led and after a moment even conceded to hurrying alongside them. He still didn’t do much to help as Rover and Ghastly cleared each street before they moved into it, though any time one of the Faceless One’s riders appeared unexpectedly he would stir himself to defend Ghastly. Only Ghastly—they both noticed it, and Rover grumbled about it, but Skulduggery told him it was his own fault for being a hallucination.

Ghastly didn’t like to point out that Skulduggery thought he was a hallucination too, in case it made him decide to stop doing what Ghastly told him.

“We have to be close by now,” Rover said as they skirted an intersection, his face red from the sun under the dust.

“Oh, we are,” Skulduggery said cheerfully. “I don’t know what you’re planning to do when we get there, though. Die, I suppose.”

He sounded positively delighted by the thought, and it made Ghastly’s throat close again. He didn’t answer. He just kept hurrying them down a narrow alley, cutting from one block to the next. The screeches had been circling overhead, taking pot-shots with their riders, but all of a sudden one came down from the air and ravaged the sides of the building, and stone came falling in on them all.

Flesh-covered hands shot up and using air to direct the debris away, and the screech’s jaws snapped only a few feet over their heads. Skulduggery bent and put a hand against the dusty jumble of debris, and a spike of rock shot up out of them and impaled the screech through the chest, spraying dark blood all across them.

“See?” Skulduggery said to a spluttering Rover. “Solved the stone problem.”

“Ghastly, he’s showing off!” Rover whined, and then the riders dropped from their dead mount’s back and they were engaged in a tight scuffle. Ghastly downed his with a sharp series of blows and then turned to help Rover, leaving Skulduggery to cover him. They had Rover backed up against the wall and before Ghastly could step in one of them broke through his guard and swept his knife at Rover’s side; but Rover’s whole being seemed to hiccup as stone swept over him and deflected the blow, and then faded away only an instant later.

Then Ghastly got in amongst them, laying about with a rock bigger than his fist, until Rover could step over their bodies and retreat with them down the end of the alley.

“Not bad,” said Skulduggery. “Your timing’s not very smooth, though.”

Rover huffed. “ _So_ unfair.”

“Come on,” Ghastly said, checking his watch and moving fast up the street. “We still have eleven minutes before Fletcher is due to re-open the portal.” Hopeless had said the portal should open up near Skulduggery, but _how_ near remained to be seen, and just in case they wanted to get back to the general area the portals had opened previously.

“It’s been fun,” said Skulduggery, “but I think it’s time to accept the definite possibility that neither of you are, in fact, real. Don’t feel bad, though. At least when you disappear it won’t hurt you.”

“We’re not disappearing,” Ghastly said.

“Well, _you_ don’t have to,” Skulduggery told him. “You can watch. I’d really rather you didn’t, but you seemed to find it cathartic the last few times.”

Ghastly flinched and Rover made that same strangled whine he did when he was honestly pained. Ghastly took a deep breath and said, “I’m not watching you be tortured.”

“It’s the only entertainment in town.”

“Then let’s blow this joint,” Rover said, and added, “Really. Let’s blow it up, all of it. Did we bring any TNT, Ghastly?”

“No.” They rounded a corner and stopped short, and Skulduggery let out a sound caught between a sigh and a moan. Batu stood at the other end, and he turned his faceless head toward them.


	25. Relight the fire

“Are we ready?” Erskine asked, looking at the unfamiliar features which had taken the place of China’s.

“So eager to see my face again, Erskine, dear?” China asked lightly, but she put the bowl of her blood, combined with water, into the circle and nodded at the shunter, and stepped back. Erskine looked around at the Hotel’s lobby one more time. The ground rumbled under their feet and he absently put a hand on the desk to steady himself, and all the keys rattled on their hooks. That had been happening periodically for the last twenty minutes.

Modeste and Blair were still there, as China’s guard, and so was Anton, whose team of sigil-masons frantically changing the Hotel’s upstairs wards to accommodate the city. They also had with them one of the younger shunters, Pinque Berth, a tiny young woman of indiscriminate ancestry whose most notable feature was her turned-up nose. Without a teleporter, a shunter and Hopeless’s anti-Key-of-Solomon book were the only ways they could make the connection.

They all stood far enough back from China’s circle so as not to get caught as the lines hummed to life and yellow light swelled in its centre. The lobby was big enough to contain a portal, but when standing right there it didn’t feel big _enough_ —especially when Erskine remembered how quickly the Faceless Ones had moved last year.

 _Stop it,_ he told himself. _We’re opening a portal to home, not to the Faceless Ones’ dimension._

The portal bloomed and grew larger, and Pinque nodded toward Erskine. He put his phone on speaker and dialled Dexter, but the call didn’t connect, and Erskine frowned. He dialled Hopeless instead, but he didn’t connect either; nor did Saracen. Trying to ignore the flutter of panic in his chest, Erskine called Ghastly and it started to ring.

Then it picked up and Ghastly shouted over the sound of fire and the snap of air, and the shriek of something inhuman. “ _WE NEED BACK UP!_ ”

Instinct kicked in over confusion and Erskine demanded, “How many are there?”

“Can’t count,” said Ghastly, “and a Faceless One in Batu.”

Erskine paled. Ghastly had taken China’s vial into the other dimension _with_ him—and there was no time to question why or how. Anton picked Daisy up off the desk and Erskine shook his head, yanking off the sling. “No, you’re injured worse than I am. I’ll get her to Ghastly; you come after me with supplies.”

He took Daisy, keeping her weight on his good arm, and stepped into the portal, and came out on dry air and red stone and flurries of movement. Almost at once he was confronted with someone wearing a lot of fur and leather and shrieking a war-cry; Erskine blocked the knife-thrust on Daisy’s chassis and cold-cocked them with her butt, and stepped away from the portal.

“Ghastly!” he shouted, and heaved Daisy up and used air to toss her over the melee. Ghastly looked up and lifted his hand to yank her into his arms, and then spun to fire it at a particularly stubborn brute. Erskine didn’t have time to see anything after that; without the shotgun he was forced to defend himself with air and with fire.

Anton stepped out of the portal with something heavy in his arms and his voice rose over the sound of the fight. “Duck.”

Erskine glanced over, saw the Tommy gun— _where the hell did he get that?!_ —and dove to the ground. The machinegun’s fire was ear-splitting and Erskine covered his head as stone rained down on them until it finally clunked empty.

“You know—” Erskine coughed in the dust and pushed himself upright, fire already in his hands in case Anton missed anyone. “—I took Daisy because you’re not fit to carry a massive bloody gun.”

“You’ve no ground to stand on,” Anton answered, without looking up because he was busy changing the magazines and his hands, Erskine saw, were shaking.

“If we didn’t know any better we’d think you were compensating for something,” Rover lamented as he got to his feet, winced and rubbing his ears. He had a knife in one hand and looked very red and dusty, except where the dust on his face had been damped. He peered skyward. “Did Anton chase them off?”

“Maybe for now,” Ghastly said, also getting to his feet and hauling Daisy with him. His face was streaked with dust and tears as well. “But Batu wasn’t far behind us.”

“I can see that,” Erskine said grimly, and pointed to the end of the corpse-ridden street, where Batu was shambling around the corner. Rover blanched.

“Uh, he moves really fast when he wants, can we go now?”

“Hurry up.” Anton slammed the Tommy gun closed and lifted it, and Rover scurried toward them while keeping to the wall, and Ghastly reached down to yank something up with him—something, Erskine realised with a skip of his heart, which was a skeleton dressed in bleached rags.

Batu lifted his head and even though he had no face Erskine felt as though he looked right at them. Then Ghastly and Rover were close enough and Anton opened fire directly into Batu’s chest and he went staggering backward.

“Erskine!” Rover hollered, but Erskine hesitated. He saw Batu bend inward and thought that maybe Anton had caught it by surprise; then he saw the way Batu set his feet and the fact he was _moving forward_ in spite of the gunfire.

“Anton,” Erskine shouted, and Anton backed toward the portal. Erskine stayed at his back until they were shrouded in yellow light and caught a glimpse of Batu running at them with huge galloping strides against the stream of bullets, and then they were facing into the portal and it was already shrinking fast, and vanished with a shrivel as he watched.

Anton lowered the Tommy gun and swayed, and Erskine caught him by the elbow and helped him out of the circle. He looked up to see Ghastly standing frozen, still holding Skulduggery up, and Skulduggery with his gaze focussed on China.

“Liliya?” he asked, and his voice was so full of wonder and hope and something like fear that it made Erskine’s throat tighten.

“Take down the illusion,” he snapped at Modeste. “Take it down _now_.”

Quickly Modeste stepped forward and put a hand on China’s shoulder, and the image of the regal blonde shimmered out of existence to be replaced by China’s darker, more fragile beauty. China smiled. “Hello, Skulduggery.”

“Ah,” said Skulduggery, but he sounded as though he was talking to himself. “Yes, that would have been too much a reward, I suppose.”

Ghastly put Daisy down and manoeuvred Skulduggery down into the nearest chair, but even then the skeleton’s focus didn’t shift. “How did you—?” Ghastly glanced toward China. “ _Why_ did you—?”

“Holograms and incentive,” Erskine said tersely as he helped Anton into another chair, and took the Tommy gun, and made sure it was properly unloaded before putting it on the desk beside Daisy.

“What happened to Anton?” Rover demanded, bounding to Anton’s side and leaning over him. “He’s all pale and—list-y.”

Sure enough, Anton was tilting to one side in his seat, gripping his chest with a grimace.

“The Faceless One last year broke his gist,” Erskine said, coming back to them and forcing Anton’s hands down so he could unbutton his shirt. “He used it earlier and it ripped a hole in him.” Gently Erskine probed the bandage. “I don’t think it’s opened up, though. Next time leave the Al Caponing to me, Shudder.”

“You’re too pretty to be a criminal overlord,” said Anton.

“I’m flattered, Shudder, but you’re not my type.” Erskine straightened up and rubbed his forehead and looked around. Modeste caught his eye and tilted her head questioningly at China. Erskine shook his in return. There was no point in putting up any illusion anymore—especially not _that_ one. Skulduggery’s wife, the woman who’d won his heart where China had failed.

China smiled at him prettily, and Erskine knew she was enjoying his plan backfiring the way it had. “What now, oh my prince?”

“I’m going to feed you to the crocodiles,” Erskine growled.

“Why are we in the Midnight Hotel?” Ghastly asked bluntly. “Where’s Fletcher, and where the _hell_ have you been all this time?”

“We’re in Erskine’s transdimensional city, currently stuck in another dimension and about to be eaten by giant and hostile creatures,” China explained, still with that smile.

“At least my complete mental breakdown is creative in nature,” Skulduggery mused, and Erskine ran his hands through his hair and took a deep breath.

“After the war I built a city where mortals and sorcerers can live in harmony and without secrets,” he explained shortly. “Usually it’s hidden by a dimensional shroud, but Scarab and Dusk broke in and destroyed the bridges keeping us in our dimension, and now we’re in a very dangerous one of our own, and we’re trying to get back.”

Ghastly stared. “We’re in another, completely different dimension?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, we can help!” Rover put up his hands. “Fletcher should be making a portal in about—” He checked his watch. “—three minutes. It’ll connect here instead of there, because we’ve got Skulduggery here. How many people do we need to save?”

“Half a million,” Erskine said, and smiled grimly as Ghastly, Rover _and_ Skulduggery all stared at him. At least, Skulduggery turned his head to look in his direction. “But that’ll do. As long as I can call Dex and ask him if he knows where Creyfon Signate is. He built the bridges originally and we need his expertise, but Scarab and Dusk took him when they left.”

“And in the meantime?” Ghastly asked with that particular tension around his eyes that said he had stepped off into the deep end a very long time ago, but there was no time to do anything but keep moving forward or collapse in a heap and get in the way. The ground beneath them rumbled. Rover yelped, Ghastly swayed and Skulduggery looked down at the floor.

“The city’s being attacked by a fifty-foot-long crocodile,” said Erskine, “and we’re holding it off with magical limpet mines and poison dispersed as ink. There’s also a flight of dragons heading our way, and if they find us they _will_ decide this is a good place to nest and eat. We need to survive long enough to get back.”

“There are dragons coming,” Ghastly repeated flatly.

“They’re very furry,” said Anton.

“They’re furragons!” Rover said gleefully, and then his eyes widened. “Wait. _No_. That’s why you asked me what I’d call a furry dragon? You let _me_ name your dragons?” He squealed and hugged Erskine from the side. “I’m so touched.”

“How much caffeine did Rover have before you left?” Erskine asked Ghastly.

“It’s been a long day,” Ghastly said, and then he visibly pulled himself together with a deep breath. “Alright. What next, then?”

“Personally,” said Skulduggery, “I think I ought to be congratulated on the depths of my imagination. I’m even surprising me.”

Ghastly flinched and Erskine exhaled slowly. None of them had talked about it, none of them had even _thought_ abought it, but they had all known the risk that even if they got Skulduggery back in what was left of his body, his mind might not be completely there. So far he had recognised everyone he should recognise and reacted to things in a logical manner, but that didn’t mean much.

Skulduggery thought none of them were real. Erskine couldn’t say he blamed him. But they didn’t have time to address Skulduggery’s sanity, or lack thereof, in a manner he deserved. Not yet. _After_. Afterward, they’d put him back together. Erskine promised them both that, silently.

“Anton can use the Hotel’s wards to get the city moving,” Erskine said. “He and China need to stay here with Pinque to finish the changes.” Erskine nodded toward the woman still sitting in the circle, watching them with wide eyes and an open mouth. “We should help rally the defences. Corrival’s helping the governor and the district mayors with the logistics.”

Skulduggery lifted his head and said suddenly, “We’re on water.”

“Yes,” said Erskine. “We’re on a lake. Hence the crocodile.”

Skulduggery tilted his head. “Crocodiles are reptiles. Cold-blooded.”

“Yes,” said Ghastly gently, “they are.”

Erskine saw Blair and Modeste—back under her usual illusion—exchange glances. He knew what they were thinking. They were thinking Skulduggery was as insane as he probably was. What they didn’t realise—what most people didn’t realise—was that insanity didn’t erase intelligence. Erskine looked at Skulduggery and waited patiently.

“So how long would a crocodile last in a _frozen_ lake?” Skulduggery mused.

“But how would it get frozen?” Blair asked, confused, and then hunched in on himself as Skulduggery’s head turned slowly toward him.

“How many Elementals do you have?” Skulduggery asked, and Erskine exchanged glances with Ghastly, and Rover whooped.

“Ooh, I like your thinking, dead man!”

“Is it possible to freeze that great an area?” Anton asked, lifting his head. He was still pale, and he looked tired. Rover flapped a hand at him, and Erskine had to wonder whether he’d even taken in the fact that Anton was injured or if he was just too hopped up on coffee and adrenaline to pay attention yet.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing is that the heat has to go somewhere, but—”

“Humidity generates cloud-cover,” Skulduggery said, and Rover grinned.

“I’ve always wanted to try mass-producing a lightning-storm.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Ghastly smiled, Erskine laughed and China shook her head with a sigh. “Welcome back, Skulduggery.”


	26. The castle

_‘… Certain as the sun rising in the east …’_

Dexter’s phone was ringing. He was vaguely aware of it, he was in fact _looking_ at it, but it took a long time for that fact to seep through the haze of numb painlessness as something he should probably answer.

_‘… Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme …’_

It took even longer to figure out which arm he should be using and reach out and grope for the phone, and bring it back.

_‘… Beauty and the Beast.’_

“Hello?”

“Dex,” said Erskine, and he sounded relieved. Dexter was pretty sure he should be relieved as well, but there wasn’t quite room in him for it. The feeling _was_ there, though. Somewhere.

“You’ve been missing,” Dexter said eloquently.

“And Ghastly tells me you’ve been an idiot,” said Erskine. “Well, Idiot, I need your help. Scarab broke our dimension bridges and we’re stuck in the dimension we’ve been using as a shroud.”

“That’s not good.”

“Not really, no. Do you have Creyfon?”

“Creyfon?”

Erskine exhaled slowly and audibly, and Dexter listened with fascination at the voices and footsteps behind his voice as he spoke. “Dexter. We need you. Pull together. Please?”

Right. Dexter took a breath of his own. He could do this. Okay. “Creyfon,” he repeated, this time less as a question and more to drag the knowledge from out of his drifting mind. “The shunter.”

“Yes. He was taken by Scarab and Dusk.”

“Workin’ with Marr,” Dexter mumbled.

“I know. Ghastly told me. They’ve taken Guild too. Digger thought they might be at a castle. Dexter, have you found them?”

Looking for Guild. Right, Dexter rubbed his face and forced himself to think. How long had it been since Fletcher took him from the Hibernian? He couldn’t remember. He did remember Hopeless dropping by to visit with updates before being hurried off to deal with something important, and the comment about the castle jogged some of his memory. “Valkyrie texted Descry,” he said finally. “She and Tanith went to Serpine’s castle. The Monster Hunters found something there.”

“Alright. Alright, good. There’s a good chance they’ll find Creyfon there too.” Erskine sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Or maybe Dexter. “Dex, I need Fletcher to go to Roarhaven. We can bring the city back over, but we need Creyfon to help rebuild the bridges so we stay there. I need Fletcher to help us by using Skulduggery’s skull to open a portal when you’ve found Creyfon.”

“Skull goes to the Faceless Ones’ dimension,” Dexter said, wondering if he’d missed part of the conversation.

“Not anymore. He’s here with us. Dexter. Tell Fletcher—”

The connection cut off suddenly and it took Dexter a few seconds to notice, and then he gazed down at the phone in betrayed hurt. A moment later it vibrated in his hand, playing _Bye Bye Bye_ , so Dexter answered it.

“Hello?”

“They didn’t come through,” Fletcher blurted. “I opened the portal for as long as you said I should but no one came through and you told me not to open it again and I don’t know—”

“Fletcher. _Fletcher._ ” Dexter put his numb, bandaged hand to his head and hoped that dizzy sensation was his being drugged up and trying to think too much. At least Fletcher stopped talking. “It’s okay,” Dexter said. “I got a call from Erskine. They’re fine. They’re in the city. The city’s in another dimension.”

“The one powering the shroud-thingy?” Fletcher demanded. “I’ve heard stories about that place.”

“They need to get out of it,” said Dexter, “and they’re going to need you to open another portal, in Roarhaven, when we’ve found Creyfon.”

“Creyfon? Where’s he?”

Dexter put his head in his hand and groaned. “I have no idea.”

There was a pause. “Okay. Right. Um—I’m coming back.”

He hung up and Dexter dropped his phone and wished his thoughts would stop making his head pound so hard. Then he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and looked blearily around for something to wear along with his pants, and Fletcher appeared in his room with the skull cradled against his chest.

“Where’s my shirt?” Dexter asked him, and Fletcher blinked.

“I don’t know,” he said uncertainly, looking at Dexter and then looking away again. “Uh, I don’t think you should be out of bed.”

“Erskine needs me.”

Someone cleared their throat by the door and Dexter looked and saw Hopeless shaking his head with what he liked to think was fond exasperation. Hopeless snapped his fingers and pointed to the bed.

“Erskine needs me,” Dexter insisted.

_‘I’ll make sure Fletcher gets to Roarhaven.’_

“You can’t leave the Sanctuary.”

_‘Bliss is coming back from America. He’ll be here within the hour, and Melissa can handle things for that long. At the very least I can tell Erskine’s shunters how to start the repairs.’_

“Decry—”

_‘I’m going stir-crazy,’_ Hopeless signed, and when Dexter focussed on him again he saw the lines around Hopeless’s eyes, the way his whole face was held to a tight mask. _‘Whoever has Guild knows what I can do. They’ve planned for it. At least I can use my knowledge to help Erskine.’_

It was a bad idea. Hopeless was Grand Mage, and they needed their Grand Mage around. But Bliss was a good leader too, and Hopeless wasn’t wrong to want to distribute their resources in the places they’d do best. As long as Scarab’s people knew Hopeless’s magic, there wasn’t much he could do against them directly.

Dexter nodded slowly. “Alright.” He squinted at Hopeless. “Were you eavesdropping on me _sleeping_?”

Hopeless only smiled and the relief made his whole face soften. He took Dexter’s arm and guided him back to bed. Dexter slumped back into the pillow with a sigh and blinked, and when he opened his eyes Hopeless and Fletcher were gone.

 

Valkyrie had never been to Serpine’s castle, but she’d heard stories. Anton had brought a lot of it down a few years ago, when the Dead Men went there looking for Hopeless after Serpine had kidnapped him. When she and Tanith got there they could tell—it was practically a ruin. It looked big, and broken, and forgotten. The only thing that was still intact was the high wall around it.

They scouted around it first, trying to find an opening or evidence that the Monster Hunters were there. In the end Tanith ran up the wall and Valkyrie vaulted herself up on the air, and they dropped down into the grounds on the other side. They had grown wild all on their own.

“Do you remember anything about the layout?” Tanith asked Valkyrie quietly.

“I only got a glimpse of the map four years ago,” Valkyrie pointed out. “All I remember is that some of the entrances got blocked off, because Rover was whining about it. He does that a lot.”

She missed him. She missed all of them. They had been lucky that Dexter was able to bluff Sanguine and the others away, but he was too injured to help and they hadn’t heard anything from Saracen for hours, even though Valkyrie had tried to call him on the way. Hopeless had texted her to give her an update about where he would be too—out of reach.

Tanith and the Monster Hunters were good, but they weren’t Dead Men.

_But I’m not alone,_ Valkyrie reminded herself. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she were.

They moved around the side of the castle ruins slowly, picking their way through the rubble and through the overgrowth and investigating any dark hole. Valkyrie was sure they must almost be back where they’d started when there came a low whistle and saw Gracious beckoning them from a hollow between two mounds of stone blocks. Tanith covered Valkyrie while Valkyrie joined him there, and then followed.

“You’ve been here all this time?” Valkyrie demanded.

“Sort-of,” said Gracious, looking sheepish, and he lifted a device that looked a lot like a phone, but wasn’t. “I picked up my clean-air-detector instead of my phone, and Donegan’s had to keep his off because of the battery, and then of course there’s no reception underground.” He jerked his head into the passage behind him. “We went to Stray and he said there was a lot of movement hereabouts, so we came to check it out.”

“What did you find?” Tanith asked quietly as they followed him down the stairs and into the underground passage, alert and moving as quietly and quickly as possible.

“It’s not what we _found_ so much as what we _heard_ ,” Gracious said vaguely.

“So help me, O’Callaghan,” Valkyrie growled in what she felt was a fair imitation of Corrival, but it made Tanith grin. Gracious looked at her with surprise.

“The Dead Men are a bad influence on you,” he told her. “We heard Guild talking with Scarab. He’s in the dungeons down here, but it’s guarded by Hollow Men and we needed the help. We don’t think he’s the only one down here, either. Someone else was talking, but we didn’t recognise the voice.”

“Do you have a way in?” Tanith asked.

“Well, sort-of …” Gracious glanced shiftily at Valkyrie.

“So help the _both_ of us, O’Callaghan,” Tanith threatened. He held up his hands in surrender and Tanith and Valkyrie grinned at each other.

“There’s a broken seam between two corridors,” Gracious said. “If someone could get in there they could get everyone out of their cells and flank the Hollow Men, or go looking for another exit. Only, Donegan and I are too big to fit through.”

“I bet Rover could do it,” said Valkyrie.

“ _Larrikin_ ,” said Gracious, looking very dignified, “is an extremely limber acrobat.”

“How would you know anything about how limber Larrikin is, Gracious?” Tanith asked, and Gracious spluttered.

“Gracious is open to trying anything twice,” said Donegan from the shadows, but low so his voice didn’t echo.

“ _Once_ , Bane, the phrase is _once_.”

“But for you, it’s twice.”

Gracious spluttered some more and Valkyrie grinned. They may not be the Dead Men, but they were the next best thing. “Where’s this hole?” she asked, taking off her belt so it wouldn’t catch on the stone.

“Just here.” Donegan’s silhouette pointed and Valkyrie slid past him to find the slit in the wall. It really wasn’t much of anything—the only reason she could tell it was there was because dim firelight was framing the other side, and she could hear the low murmur of voices, but not their words. They were too low and the conversation too regular to quite recognise, either, but Valkyrie was sure she knew them. She didn’t see anyone else near the gap.

It was narrow, though. _Very_ narrow. Narrow enough to make Valkyrie’s heart skip a beat.

“Can you make it through?” Tanith asked softly. Valkyrie took a deep breath and turned to the side and sidled into the gap, sucking in her stomach and wishing she could suck in her growing chest.

“I think so,” she grunted, putting her back up against the wall to give her front more room, and thankful she’d thought to take off the belt. It took some scraping and twisting, but she managed to get through to the other side and slink into the shadows, away from the light in the distance. Her hands shook as she put the belt back on, making sure Saracen’s knife was where she could reach it, and waited for Tanith.

After a moment she heard Tanith say, “I’m stuck.”

Valkyrie’s graze swept the hall again and she crept back to the slit, and saw the whites of Tanith’s eyes peering back at her. She whispered, “That outcropping halfway up?”

“Yep.” Tanith shifted, jostling a bit, and then winced. “I’m too big in the chest. It’s getting in the way.”

“Can you climb up and kind of go over it?”

“Maybe. Just a tick.”

More shuffling, and Valkyrie turned back to the hall to keep guard, one hand out to feel the air. She was getting better at detection, enough that she knew she’d be able to sense anyone coming down the hall as long as she kept far enough from Tanith’s scrambling. Finally there was a grunt and a scrape, and Tanith dropped down from two feet higher than she’d started.

“Donegan says the exit is this way,” Tanith said quietly, pointing down the hall and rubbing her chest with a wince. “But there are four Hollow Men guarding the stairs, and more in the ruins.”

“So we’ll bring them down this way and see if we can find or make another opening,” Valkyrie answered, thumbing over her shoulder.

“Exactly. Let’s go.”

They moved down either side of the passage, clearing any offshoots or cells one by one, until they reached a place where the hall parted to either side. Valkyrie tested the air and nodded down one way, and they followed it. The voices had gone quiet now, but she could still feel movement ahead. The cells were closer together here, too, though not by much.

Tanith hissed softly and Valkyrie joined her peering into the cell, and saw Guild slumped against the wall. A rough and bloody bandage was around one hand and there was a makeshift splint on one leg. If he’d been talking before, he was unconscious now.

Valkyrie signalled Tanith to stay and moved ahead, her darker clothes better at blending into the shadows. She came to the next cell and the man inside looked up and stared.

“Signate?” she whispered.

“I take back everything I ever said about children,” Signate whispered. “But you’re still insane.”

“She gets that from her uncles,” said Saracen, and Valkyrie turned to see him in the opposite cell, with drying blood in his hair and on his face. He was standing, though, leaning against the bars. “How did you get here?”

“How did you?”

“Scapegrace led me into an ambush,” Saracen said, sounding disgruntled. “Your turn.”

“Someone called Stray told Gracious and Donegan there’s been a lot of activity around here.”

“Myron Stray,” said Saracen. “He used to be in the information business, before Bliss outed his true name—no one goes to him anymore, so he’s actually a little bit more useful than he was right after it happened. Are you alone?”

“Tanith’s with me,” said Valkyrie.

“Ghastly and Rover?”

“They’re okay. They’ve got Skulduggery.”

Even as she said it Valkyrie felt a heavy lurch in her body, something that wanted to be thrilled but she didn’t have the time to really let loose. Saracen closed his eyes and exhaled, and rested his forehead against the bars. “Okay. That’s good. Erskine and Anton?”

“They’re okay too,” Valkyrie said, glancing toward Signate. “Hopeless has gone to give them a hand.” Signate didn’t exactly relax, but some of the tension went out of his face. “They’re going to need your help, though.”

“Of course they are,” Signate muttered. “None of the shunters there right now have any experience in building … the sorts of things they need.”

“I don’t know what either of you are talking about,” said Saracen, “and I don’t really care. Get us out of here.”

Valkyrie stepped back and switched places with Tanith, and Tanith put her hand over the locks to magic them open. Saracen staggered out leaning on the wall, and Signate limped and held his hands gingerly, but at least they could both move. Guild’s door was open and he hadn’t even stirred. Valkyrie went in to check his pulse just to make sure he was still alive.

“We’ll take him,” said Saracen from the doorway.

“You can barely keep your feet,” Tanith pointed out.

“It’s just a little concussion,” Saracen grumbled, but when he tried to bend down he swayed and braced himself against the wall, and his eyes unfocussed. “Um. Might need you to get him up, though.”

The jostling as they tried to do so made Guild wake up. He blinked at them all blearily, his face lined with pain and blood, and it struck Valkyrie how old he actually was. Maybe not quite as old as Corrival or Meritorious, but not far off. He’d been stabbed in the gut only a year ago, and hadn’t Dexter said Gail had been controlled into attacking him?

“Where are you hurt?” she whispered at him.

“Morrígna’s girl,” he muttered, and Valkyrie didn’t like the way his breath wheezed.

“Internal damage.”

Guild nodded, but it was more like a hang of his head, and then drew in a deeper, slightly gurgling breath. “My family—”

“They’re at the Sanctuary, they’re fine.”

Guild slumped as the tension left him and Valkyrie staggered under his weight.

“I’ve got him.” Signate worked under Guild’s shoulder, and Saracen managed to get under the other without tilting, and Valkyrie hovered for a moment to make sure they wouldn’t all fall before backing out of the cell. Tanith glanced back from where she stood guarding the passage in case the Hollow Men heard anything.

“I think we’re clear,” she whispered.

“This is too easy,” Valkyrie whispered back.

“Not really,” Saracen said. “Whoever’s behind all this has been distracting us on half-a-dozen fronts. Some of them have to be weaker than the others. Maybe we just got lucky.”

“You believe in luck?” Tanith asked.

“When I can’t use my magic, I do.”

“It’s still too easy,” Valkyrie said again, turning to lead them back down the hall, her hand extended. “Where’s Scarab?”

“Prostate problems,” Guild muttered.

“That was more than I needed to know,” Saracen grumbled.

“He was very—loud about it before you arrived. As if it’s my fault.”

“Is it?” Valkyrie asked, and Guild lifted his head enough to glare at her. “Just asking.”

They moved through the passages as quickly as Guild could manage, which wasn’t very fast.

“Do _you_ remember much of the layout?” Valkyrie asked Saracen once they were the T-junction and a couple of turns away from the Hollow Men, and could talk more safely.

“I’ve never been here before,” Saracen shot back. “I was in Australia when the others came here to find Descry, remember?”

“Oh, yeah …”

“I’m going to die,” Guild muttered.

“Don’t do that. You’ll make me look bad to your wife.”

“You _do_ have an exit?” Signate demanded, and Tanith and Valkyrie exchanged looks.

“Uh, yeah,” said Valkyrie.

“Absolutely.” Tanith nodded.

“You’re right,” Signate said to Guild. “We’re going to die.”

“You say that like it’s as bad as the things the Dead Men get up to,” Valkyrie grumbled, and they came to the slit in the wall. Valkyrie hissed through it until she saw the steady glow of an electric torch and Gracious peering through.

“Did you find them?”

“We’ve got Guild, Signate and Saracen,” said Valkyrie.

“What’s _Saracen_ doing there?”

“He got ambushed by Scapegrace,” said Valkyrie, ignoring Saracen’s wordless grumble behind her. “Listen, Guild’s got internal injuries, Saracen’s got a concussion and Signate’s needed badly—somewhere else. Go back out and have someone send the Cleavers in, will you? We need a distraction and we need an exit.”

“Donegan’s gone to call the Sanctuary already,” said Gracious. “I’ll go catch him up. Here.” He tossed something through the gap and Valkyrie snapped out her hand and manoeuvred it into her grip, and looked down at it. “Parts of the screen will glow as you get closer to cleaner air—you know, like that game Marco-Polo? You should be able to find someplace close to the surface, if not an escape route.”

Valkyrie waved at him as he left and then turned and went back to the others. “The Monster Hunters have already gone to get reinforcements,” she told them, and held up the detector. “This will help us find a way out. It detects clean air.”

“So can any Elemental worth their salt,” Guild growled, and then coughed, and Valkyrie swallowed her first response.

“You’re too hurt to do it right now,” she pointed out coolly, “and I haven’t learned that trick yet, so I’m not going to turn up my nose at anything that helps. Let’s go.”

She poked the detector’s buttons until it turned on with a jaunty ringtone, and led the way down the passage.


	27. Riding the storm

The clouds were mounting and the air had gotten thicker. Erskine could see the patches of frost turning the city’s shores white and spreading across the surface of the lake. Nothing seemed to happen while he was watching, but then he would look away and glance back and the ice had grown.

Rain drizzled, so thin that it felt like the wind itself was wet, but constant. Up on the Decks it was almost warm, enough that Erskine had taken off his coat after walking up the stairs, but down on the streets it would be chilly, hitting the ground and sticking.

Erskine reached Central’s Deck and heard Rover’s voice, and followed it around the Deck to see Rover dancing barefoot on the rail on the edge, his hair matted to his skull and wearing a manic grin, and absolutely oblivious to the stares he was getting.

“This is amazing!” he crowed. “Look at that! Look at what we’re doing!”

“What we’re doing is attracting attention,” said Erskine, coming up behind him and debating whether he had the energy to pull Rover back behind the windbreak sigils. He decided he only had just enough energy left to keep himself dry in the damp.

Rover spun easily on the rail and spread his arms wide. “Erskine! This is _incredible_! Look at what we’ve done! We’ve created a _storm_!”

“Yes, us and about fifty-thousand other Elementals,” Erskine said dryly.

“Uh-uh!” Rover waggled his finger at him. “Who _else_ could have gotten _fifty-thousand_ Elementals working together in the space of an hour? Erskine, you’re a prince! You’re my faery-prince!”

He launched himself off the bar at Erskine, and Erskine dropped his coat and caught him, and spun him around, and then dropped him onto the Deck’s floor with a thud. “I’m no one’s prince,” said Erskine as he kicked Rover’s shoes at him, but he was smiling. “I’m just good at getting people to listen. Have you seen Ghastly yet?”

“Dropped by Mzansi before I found my way up,” said Rover cheerfully, bouncing easily to his feet with his shoes in his hand. “They’re getting there, though. Look!” He pointed at the great white expanse that was spreading from Australis and then at Zhonghua. “Mine’s bigger than yours!”

“You’ve been creating ice for longer than I have,” Erskine grumbled. In truth he’d never conjured ice in his life, though he knew the concept behind it. They all did; it was just that the skill had always been something unique to Rover. Skulduggery was the only one who’d actively tried to learn it.

Rover only laughed and spun in the rain, holding his hands in the air until the shoes spun. It was that wild, delighted laugh they only heard when he was so tired, so uninhibited, so drunk on adrenaline that it was impossible to believe he actually was anything other than a faery out of some long-forgotten tale. Erskine might have had the looks, but Rover was fey in a way that had often made Erskine wonder if he was fully sane himself.

After living and not-living by degrees over a thousand years, maybe he wasn’t, but he seemed alright with that.

“Someone tie the bloody idiot down,” said Corrival as he came stumping up the stairs, shaking water off his coat. Ghastly came with him, looking tired but revitalised in the rain and with the purpose. Neither of them had bothered to keep themselves dry.

“We’ve got them started pretty well,” he said. “How are things progressing on your end?”

“Take a look.” Erskine spread his arm toward the view and Ghastly came to join him on the edge, and Erskine revelled in the look of wide-eyed wonder on his friend’s face. There hadn’t been time for a tour, hadn’t been time for anything except to give each of them an assistant to explain the necessary basics as needed. This was the first time Ghastly would have seen the city from this height. It wasn’t the best of sights, what with the rain dulling every inch of the city—but it was good enough.

“Erskine—” Ghastly shook his head, lost for words, incredulous and amazing at once. “We’re going to have to put a leash on you and Hopeless.”

“Who said Hopeless had anything to do with it?”

“Who _else_ would have given you the idea to build an entire _city_?” They exchanged a grin.

“We stopped by the Hotel on our way up,” said Corrival. “Khutulun says the citizens have been alerted and should be holed down in their homes, but the mayors have squads from the precinct going around to check. The governor’s safe in the hotel. Everything else is in lockdown. Shudder and Sorrows’s team is nearly done with the wards, and the shunters have gone out to lay the bridge foundations in the districts. Hopeless is still sketching fixes. We’re still going to need Signate, but this should quarter the time he’ll have to re-establish the bridges.”

Erskine nodded. He hadn’t been there when Hopeless came through—none of them had been; they’d already started coaching their teams of Elementals to freezing the lake—but he didn’t dare go back. He was afraid that if he saw Hopeless before this was all over he’d collapse in a puddle of neuroses before anything had been solved. None of them had time for that.

“I hope you told him he’s an idiot for coming, given what he had to leave behind,” he said.

“Loudly,” said Corrival, “but do you think he listened?” He snorted and motioned toward the arcade. “Let’s go see how Pleasant’s doing.”

“I still don’t see why he got to be in charge of the lightning-making,” Rover complained, bouncing after them with his shoes back on his feet.

“Because he can fly and you can’t,” said Ghastly, and Rover huffed.

“ _Unfair_.”

They had to take a series of elevators up to the top of the tower. Given how many times Erskine had used the circles throughout the day, he was fairly sure the queasy feeling in his stomach wasn’t just due to tension, lack of food or too much adrenaline. When Rover had heard what they were for he’d had to be dragged away before he could ‘test’ them to his satisfaction.

The inside of the arcade and the tower were more organised than they had been. The hospital was still open and functioning and so was the precinct; but everyone else had been evacuated back to their homes or—if they were Elementals of sufficient power—split into groups and taken to each of the districts or to the top of the tower with Skulduggery. Channelling heat into the atmosphere was only one part of the plan, and the easiest; the rest depended on whatever insanely genius brainwaves Skulduggery had come up with while he was being horribly tortured.

At the height of the tower the winds were stronger and the air thicker, and the warmth had finally moved high enough that Erskine felt the need to put his jacket back on. Skulduggery’s voice was occasionally audible, but not enough to be heard by all the Elementals around the edges of the roof. A young body scrambled past them and Corrival reached out and grabbed their arm to stop them, and with a start Erskine recognised the young girl whose father had been imprisoned after helping the Diablerie last year.

“What are you doing up here, lass?” Corrival demanded, and Peep looked up at him defiantly.

“Weren’t comin’ home and figured you’d need runners,” she said.

“Aw, isn’t she adorable,” Rover cooed, and moved in to hug her except that Erskine got in his way.

“How dare you not get home enough, Corrival,” he said with a straight face, and grinned to see Corrival’s face redden.

“Needed a place to stay ’til her daddy got out, didn’t she?” he muttered, but he let go of Peep’s arm and nudged her toward the exit. “Go on and help in the hospital. Wind’ll blow a mite like you away up here.”

“Need someone to watch for the dragons,” Peep said stubbornly.

“She’s not wrong,” Erskine pointed out, glancing around. “Everyone here’s an Elemental. In a few minutes we’ll all be too busy directing the storm to keep an eye on where the dragons are.”

“Oh, for—fine,” Corrival said, throwing up his hands. “Find a perch and don’t move for balls, lass, go.”

Peep shot off toward the edge which faced the dragons’ course. Corrival glared at all of their grins and strode off into the wind, his faded coat whipping.

“Report,” he barked, and his voice cut through even the howl of the wind. Skulduggery, hovering ten feet off the roof and looking up at the sky, didn’t move. He cut a much different figure than he had; his clothes had been so reduced to tatters that Anton had dug out his black armour, despite Ghastly’s grumbles about outdated enchantments.

“It’s nearly ready,” he said, and only then tilted his skull down to look at them approaching. He let himself drop and hit the roof with an inaudible thud. “The crocodile?”

“The frost hasn’t sunk deep enough yet,” said Corrival, “but masons have modified the shields protecting the farms and facilities underground so they’ll project the cold. The foundations are safe. The district shores are still at risk. We’ve got the lightning-rods deployed.”

“Fifty _thousand_ Elementals, Skulduggery,” Rover said gleefully.

“It’s very impressive,” Skulduggery agreed. “It’s a pity none of you are _real_ , but it’s still very impressive.” He looked up again and they followed his gaze, and saw the clouds draw tighter, following the direction of the dozens of Elementals standing on the tower. Most of them were ferryhands—this required more delicate work than just shunting heat to altitude. It required directing air from a distance to effect huge changes on the clouds above.

Even under the overcast sky, the figures of the dragons were visible. They kept darting down into the water, hunting for lake-dwelling prey, too low to have noticed or cared about the change in weather but not high enough to avoid running across the city. Of course, maybe they had reason not to be concerned about a storm. Erskine hoped they’d regret that incaution once Skulduggery was done, in as far as the dragons could regret.

“Would you care to help?” Skulduggery asked cheerfully. “This next bit is delicate, and you’re all much more familiar hallucinations than the others. It would be like reading my own mind.”

“Tell us where and how,” Corrival told him, but Erskine saw the way his mouth tightened right before he did.

“Excellent,” said Skulduggery. “Stand in the four quadrants around me, please. You should be able sense the four currents the teams are generating. I need each of you to direct one.”

They flanked him, spreading out but not so far that they wouldn’t hear his orders. Erskine lifted his hands to the air and was startled by the strength of the movement in it. Just standing there he’d mistaken the wind for a side-effect of the massive amount of heat being generated off the ocean; but now he could feel that it was directed. _Controlled_.

There had to be over a hundred Elementals on this tower, and the efforts of a good quarter of them were vibrating under his fingertips. This wasn’t going to be a matter of brute-force—this was going to take finesse.

“Erskine, push up and nine o’clock, thirty-degrees,” Skulduggery barked out suddenly, and Erskine twisted his hands, directing some currents of his own to change the way the air layered, pushing it up. He twisted his hands again to nudge it in the bearing Skulduggery had ordered, and heard a rumble overhead as the clouds broke upon one another.

“Good, good,” said Skulduggery, sounding pleased. “More of that and we’ll be having barbeque dragon for dinner. Well, you will be. Hallucinatorily. Rover, three o’clock, minus twenty degrees.”

“Give me the hard ones, why don’t you,” Rover whined, but he spread his hands and did it, somehow; Erskine was too busy keeping an eye on the flow of his own team’s current to pay attention to how. One of the clouds broke underneath, sprawling over the city; the clouds over and beside it were dragged by the undertone until thunder boomed directly overhead.

“Excellent. Ghastly—”

They worked like this at Skulduggery’s direction, weaving the air together, creating friction between currents and making the clouds sound off one another like a rolling series of deep bells. Erskine’s whole body ached before long and he was soaked to the bone, but he was grinning wildly even so, and knew he wasn’t the only one. The storm howled around them, ripped at their clothes and pounded in their bones and beat at their skin with rain, and it was _theirs_. Rover was right. No one had ever before been able gather enough Elementals to work together for something like _this_.

“The dragons’re comin’,” Peep hollered, her voice slipping between the winds and the raindrops.

“Are we ready yet?” Rover demanded, sounding as breathless as Erskine felt. The clouds were too high to be any deterrent to the dragons unless they could induce lightning toward the lake.

“That depends on whether your ice-makers have done their job,” said Skulduggery. Then he tilted his head and extended one bony finger. “Look.”

Erskine looked. The clouds were boiling upon on one another, dark and ominous, and patches of them lit by the lightning they couldn’t see. At first Erskine thought that was all Skulduggery meant—but then he saw the flash down toward the lake’s surface. And another. And another. The clouds rolled in all directions and the crack came down suddenly, so loud it made Erskine jump.

The air under his hands rolled and spread and he felt a quarter of the Elementals force it back under control, and added his efforts to theirs.

“Let it go!” Skulduggery shouted. “It’s done—let it go!”

A bolt of lightning ripped the sky over their heads and the tower rumbled and the air bucked everywhere. Erskine found himself on the ground, his head ringing and hands throbbing with the sudden heat. He rolled shakily to his feet and looked around and saw others, similarly dazed.

Someone’s hand landed on his shoulder and Erskine jerked, but it was only Corrival, speaking without sound. He realised that wasn’t working a moment later and tapped Erskine’s shoulder, and signed: _‘Time to get below.’_

The bolt had struck the tower’s lightning-rod, Erskine realised dimly. Still too close—still far too close. He staggered to his feet and waved off Corrival’s hands, and went to help some of the others up, pushing them toward the stairs down into the atrium. He caught glimpses of Ghastly and Rover and Corrival doing the same, hustling others into safety first.

Sound came back accompanied by a fading ring in his ears. Thunder rumbled deafeningly overhead, all across the city, and lightning strikes arced toward the grounding-rods and the lake’s surface. As the crowd thinned out Erskine stopped to watch and saw a bolt hit ice and shatter it in a burst of white frost. The dragons wheeled about in confusion, disorientated and hopefully deterred from the area for good.

“Erskine!” Ghastly shouted and Erskine turned and saw Ghastly moving away from the tail end of the crowd. “Where’s Skulduggery?!”

_Oh, no_. Erskine moved away from the wall, already scanning the rapidly emptying area for that black armour with the bleached skull on top.

“Over here!” Rover yelled, and Erskine turned and squinted to see him pointing frantically off the tower. It took a moment to see Skulduggery in the sheeting rain without the solid footing of the tower underneath. He hung in the air ten feet away from it, watching the storm they had created.

“Skulduggery!” Ghastly called, moving to the wall that surrounded the tower and flicking air at him to catch his attention. Slowly Skulduggery’s head turned and he gazed in their direction, though it was impossible to tell what he was thinking except that he was a million miles away.

“Ah,” he said. “You’re still there.”

“Skulduggery, get back here!” Rover shouted, leaning over the wall as though he could fly himself, and gesturing so wildly that he might have fallen if Erskine hadn’t grabbed the back of his shirt at the last minute. “Ghastly and I didn’t dive headlong into the Faceless Ones’ dimension for you to get yourself barbequed or left behind!”

“He’s right,” Ghastly said. “The storm worked, the dragons will leave—we’ll be taking the city back as soon as Signate is found!”

“Good for you,” said Skulduggery. “I hope you have a good life, such as it can be when you’re a delusion. I, however, am still back in the dimension of the Faceless Ones, screaming.” He shook his head. “As nice as this delusion happens to be, I know it’s not real. Why continue to pretend that it is? If I ever wake up again, it will only make the reality harder.”

Erskine’s heart was pounding. There could have been any number of things contributing to it, but right now, he was focussing on the heat of anger. “Skulduggery!” he shouted. “Don’t you _dare_ do this! Don’t you _dare_ run out on us for the third time!”

“Technically,” said Skulduggery, “since you’re a delusion, it isn’t you I’m running out on. The real you won’t even know.”

“But _you’ll_ know,” Erskine shot back. “You’ve been captured, Skulduggery! The only choices you have left pertain to this hallucination! You leave now and _you’ll_ know that you could make the choice to run out on us again! Is that knowledge you want to live with for the rest of your life?”

For some moments there was only the deafening thunder and the crack of lightning splitting the sky from cloud to ground. Skulduggery hung there motionless, and then in the flash of the next bolt of lightning Erskine saw him swooping back, and he landed on the roof beside them.

“No,” he said. “No, it isn’t.” He looked at Erskine. “Of course, now I _know_ you’re a delusion. Erskine Ravel was never this intelligent.”

“You’ve had your influence, dead man,” said Erskine, and Rover let out his dog-like whine and clutched Skulduggery from the side.

“Don’t you _ever_ scare us like that again!” he scolded, and let Skulduggery go enough to drag him toward the exit. “Come on, time to go.”

“Thank you,” said Ghastly quietly as he joined Erskine in following them. He looked pale, almost grey under the darkness of the clouds, and Erskine pretended not to see the fact that his eyes were altogether too damp to just be due to the storm.

“We’ll help him, Ghastly,” Erskine promised. “We’ll get enough of him back that the holes won’t matter.”

Ghastly smiled, and it was wobbly but real. “I seem to recall saying something similar to someone else with a few holes they were convinced they wouldn’t be able to fill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Erskine, and they reached the stairs and ducked, finally, into the relative safety of Tír Tairngire’s tower.


	28. Weighty events

“Stephanie!” Valkyrie turned and was instantly swallowed up by her mother’s hug.

“Mum,” she said, her voice muffled in Mum’s shoulder, “breathing.”

“You went off to break into the bad guy’s hideout without telling anyone and all you’re worried about is your ability to breathe,” Mum grumbled, but she loosened her grip and when Valkyrie pulled back she immediately felt guilty. Mum’s face was haggard and her eyes were red, like she had been trying hard not to cry all afternoon.

“We told Descry,” Valkyrie pointed out uncomfortably. “We sent him a text message.”

“We’re talking about this later,” said Mum, “along with a few other things—just as soon as your father finishes work.” She pointed at a bed. “Now sit and don’t leave the medical wing until I can come back to get you.”

Grumbling, Valkyrie went and sat, and the moment Mum was out of the room got up again. She was fine—just a bit scraped up from squeezing through that gap, and dusty from being underground, and exhausted from not having slept the night before. But for all that she felt too restless to even try to nap.

Instead she left the room to find someone to talk to. The moment they had found an exit and got phone reception, she rang Fletcher and had him come pick up Signate. She’d been startled by how exhausted Fletcher looked, even though she shouldn’t have been surprised; he’d opened up three portals already and had to open a fourth, and that wasn’t counting all the teleporting he had done.

Signate hadn’t looked in good shape either. His limp had gotten worse as they moved and it wasn’t until they got out into the open air that Valkyrie had realised all his fingernails were missing, and that he had a half-dozen gaping holes in his clothes. He’d claimed the wounds weren’t too bad because Scarab had needed him ambulatory, but Valkyrie suspected he was leaving something out.

Either way, Fletcher had taken him and the rest of them had waited for the Cleavers. Tanith had stayed behind with the Monster Hunters, but Valkyrie had come back with Guild and Saracen.

There was still a lot going on, but none of it involved Valkyrie. There was a nurse at Dexter’s door to keep visitors from slipping him out, so for a few minutes Valkyrie wandered through the halls. Once she saw Kenspeckle hurry into a room and went to go and say hello, but changed her mind when she peeked in the window and saw Synecdoche in there as well, saying: “If you want to come and help with my patients tomorrow, we can go to the bistro on the corner for lunch …”

Somehow it was a surprise when she passed a room and heard Ifrit’s loud voice, and Valkyrie remembered that it had barely been a few hours ago that they’d all been attacked. She hesitated at the door and then pushed it open and went in.

Natalie lay in her bed looking pale and her eyes a little unfocussed, but awake, if not paying attention. Ifrit was in the next bed over, both his hands bandaged up so he was wrestling with a cup filled with water. Well, half-filled, now. Farley was across from them, sitting up with his wrist resting in a long basin filled with something that helped knit the bones together. Missy wasn’t there—probably with her mother while they waited for word on Guild—but as Valkyrie watched Kara took Ifrit’s cup and put it down harder than necessary, and dunked a straw in it.

“There.”

Ifrit grinned at her sheepishly and leaned down to drink from the straw, and saw Valkyrie in the doorway. “Hey! Val!”

He reached up to wave and then couldn’t, and scowled at the bandage. Valkyrie grinned. “Forget it, Ifrit, your hands are full. Where’s Henry?”

“His parents took him away,” Kara said. “They were angry at first, but then they had a long talk with the Grand Mage and they looked calmer when they left.”

“Yeah, he’s does that to people.” Valkyrie went in and sat down in the spare chair at the foot of Farley’s bed. “Hey, Natalie.”

“Hey, Val,” Natalie whispered. She had a bandage around her head, one so thick it would have looked funny if Valkyrie didn’t know it was stuffed full of magical salves. “You look horrible.”

Valkyrie laughed. “ _I_ look horrible?”

“Uh huh.” Kara got up and picked up the mirror on the empty bed’s bureau, and brought it over. Valkyrie winced at her reflection. She was pale and her eyes were darkly ringed, and she had dust all over her face and turning her hair coarse so it stuck up all over the place.

“I do look horrible. Not hurt, though.” She put down the mirror.

“Did you get the guys?” Ifrit demanded, and Valkyrie shook her head.

“I don’t know, they’re still raiding their base. We got Guild back, though. Missy’s dad.”

“ _Elder Guild_ ,” Kara muttered, and rounded on Farley. “How long have _you_ known _that_?”

Farley looked up. His eyes were hollow and sunken too, Valkyrie noticed. “I’ve always known,” he said. “My parents know him. I’ve seen him all the time growing up, at big political dinner-parties and that sort of thing.”

“Is that how you knew about Val too?” Ifrit asked.

“Yeah,” said Farley, glancing at Valkyrie and then looking down again, picking at his blanket with his good hand. “My parents talked about you a lot. They kept going on about how wonderful you must be for the Dead Men to have you, and then in the next sentence saying they’d ruin you.”

He sounded more resigned than bitter, but Valkyrie wasn’t sure how to answer. She opened her mouth to say something, hoping her tired brain would come up with something good, and blurted, “You don’t have any magic.”

Farley’s head snapped up and for a moment he looked at her with furious rebellion and hurt. Then he looked away. “No. My younger brother does. You might’ve noticed, he doesn’t go to our school.”

“My mum doesn’t have any magic either,” Valkyrie said awkwardly.

“I don’t care about your mum.”

“She’s the Administrator.”

Farley twitched.

“Seriously?” Ifrit blurted, and Valkyrie smiled at him tiredly.

“Yeah. Hopeless hired her a couple of years ago, when he became Elder. He just needed an assistant at first, because of how he can’t talk anymore, but then the other Administrator turned out to be a traitor and Mum was the best qualified to replace her. Not many people realise she can’t use magic. I don’t think Guild knows. Mr Bliss does, but he goes golfing with my dad all the time and Dad doesn’t use magic either.”

“How _long_ have you known the Dead Men?” Kara demanded. “You keep talking about famous people like it’s nothing!”

Valkyrie shrugged. “A few years,” she said. “They were friends with my uncle, Gordon. I met them at his funeral.”

“You’re so lucky,” Ifrit moaned, and once again Valkyrie thought of the golf-club, and Rover as a statue, and Skulduggery lost in a dimension of Faceless Ones.

“It’s not really lucky to have people I know dying or hurting all around me,” she said shortly.

Someone cleared their throat at the door and everyone looked, and it was _Gail_ standing there, taller than she had been and gangly, and pale, and hesitant.

“Hi,” she said softly, her gaze dropping to the floor. Without even thinking about it, without even remembering making the decision to do so, Valkyrie got up and crossed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug so tight that Gail squeaked.

“Rover told me they’d found you,” Valkyrie said. _Now_ , of all times, her eyes decided to start burning and her throat decided to tighten. “Why didn’t you come up earlier?”

“You all seemed too busy,” said Gail. Valkyrie pulled back and took her hand and dragged her into the room.

“Now we’re not.” She pointed at her chair. “Sit.” Gail sat and Valkyrie pulled one of the spare chairs over. “How’s your mum? Has she decided how she’s going to rip out Marr’s spleen yet?”

Valkyrie was sure she saw a smile on Gail’s face, just for a moment, but it was hard to be certain when Gail barely looked up at anyone. “She’s still deciding,” said Gail, and then blurted, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Valkyrie. Gail’s head jerked.

“But you don’t even know why—”

“I don’t. It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

Finally Gail looked up to meet Valkyrie’s eyes. Valkyrie grinned at her and Gail smiled tentatively, a smile like she hadn’t smiled once in the last year, which she probably hadn’t. It looked nice.

There came purposeful footsteps down the hall and Valkyrie looked up in surprise as Mr Bliss came into the room. His cold gaze swept across them all, making Kara squeak and Ifrit hunch into his pillow, and ended on Valkyrie.

“Cain,” he said.

“I thought you were in America,” Valkyrie answered.

“The Grand Mage recalled me early. Guild and Rue are both asleep. I need your report so I know what to expect when Low and the Monster Hunters return.”

Valkyrie flushed. She’d totally forgotten about the reporting thing—she was used to _filing_ the paperwork, but she hadn’t had to _write_ any yet. All the statements had been taken for her. “Oh, yeah. Hang on, I’ll come with.”

She got up and turned to Gail to ask if she’d still be around when Valkyrie got back, but Gail was trembling and her eyes were wide. Valkyrie frowned. “Gail?”

Gail flinched and it was as though that broke whatever held her immobile. She lifted her hand and Bliss grunted and staggered, and Gail squeezed her fist and Bliss’s knees buckled. He caught himself on the floor and coughed, and spat up blood, and his elbow trembled as if about to buckle. Gail’s eyes were still wide, but now glazed and unseeing. Valkyrie picked up her chair and swung it, and it struck Gail with a sharp crack that flung her off her seat.

Valkyrie’s heart pounded as she stepped forward. Gail was already pushing herself to her feet but Valkyrie couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t tell if the blow had put her back in her right mind or not. She couldn’t take the risk either way, so Valkyrie stepped forward, but Gail rolled and thrust out her hand and Valkyrie’s leg bucked and shattered. She screamed as it dragged her right to the ground.

Panting, Valkyrie pushed herself up and saw Gail rise and turn back toward Bliss, her face blank. She lifted her hand and Bliss’s elbow buckled and he hit the floor as though an anvil had fallen on him. Ifrit was pounding on the nurse-calling button, yelling at the top of his lungs, and Valkyrie could hear people running down the hall, but it wouldn’t be soon enough.

Valkyrie snapped her trembling fingers and fed heat to the flames and flung it at Gail, and her mind was still clear so she snapped her fingers again and threw those flames too. Someone was screaming and Valkyrie was pretty sure it wasn’t her, but the flames blocked her from seeing Gail and she didn’t have the strength to turn and see whether Bliss was still alive.

Then there were others shouting, a lot of people, and one of them was Kenspeckle, and that was how Valkyrie knew they’d be okay. Kenspeckle would know what to do. She slumped back to the floor and the insistent beat of pain in her leg finally forced itself into first place in her attention, followed quickly by the darkness of a faint.


	29. Scarab

_Scorn was sipping delicately at her cup of tea when Scarab limped into the room, already glaring. He was followed quickly by his son. It was a pity, really. She had heard that Billy-Ray Sanguine was handsome, but he’d been too pale and thin just after being rescued and now his face was too twisted with bitter fury every time he touched his injured side._

_“What do you want?” Scarab snapped, and Scorn pushed out the chair opposite her with one foot._

_“Have a seat, Dreylan,” she said with a winning smile._

_“I’ll stand,” Scarab growled, so Scorn gave the chair a forceful shove and it struck him and made him stagger. His bad leg shook and buckled, and he hit the floor with a cry._

_“Oops,” said Scorn innocently. “I’m sorry, Dreylan. I forgot your bones aren’t what they used to be.”_

_Seething he pull himself up and gripped the table, and glared at her as he found his way onto the chair. “What do you_ want _?!”_

_“Tea?” Scorn asked, putting down her cup and pouring one for Dreylan without waiting for an answer. She didn’t offer one to Sanguine. Scarab glared at her as she poured, and she calmly put down the pot and picked up her own cup, and sipped at it until Scarab took his and drained it in a few mouthfuls._

_“There,” he said, letting the cup drop with a loud clink. “Now tell me why I’m here.”_

_“I’ve been asked to tell you how disappointed our master is in you,” said Scorn. “You didn’t do your job right, Dreylan.”_

_“I held Guild and the others,” Scarab said, his old, wrinkled face twisting. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.”_

_“Our master,” Scorn corrected. “And you’ve done everything terribly. You couldn’t take the skull from a little girl. You were tricked by the_ fake _skull they delivered to you—”_

_“That wasn’t my fault!”_

_“—and you let our three prisoners get rescued right under your nose. What_ were _you doing that distracted you so much, Dreylan?”_

_“None of your business,” Scarab snarled. Scorn picked up her serviette and wiped his spittle off her face, her lip curling._

_“You were so busy trying to figure out a way to humiliate Guild and the Sanctuary in mortal public that you let them escape. Our master isn’t ready for the mortal world to know about us yet, Dreylan. I don’t suppose you care about_ that _.”_

_“Our master,” said Scarab mockingly. “You keep touting that bit about_ our master _. Where is he, Scorn? I haven’t seen him. You’ve gone out of your way to make sure I don’t, in fact. If you think I’m going to dance to_ your _fiddle under the pretext of follow_ our master’s _orders, you’re—sorely—”_

_As he spoke his breath got shorter and shorter. Scorn watched with interest. She’d been warned that the effects would take a little while to kick in, but once they had they were fast moving. Scarab’s face went pale and then purple, and he clutched at his chest. “What—” he gasped. “—what did you—”_

_Scorn put a bottle on the table and was equally interested to note that all the blood drained from Sanguine’s face when he saw the label. He practically backed into the wall._

_“Platypus poison,” said Scorn when Scarab’s gaze fixed on the label and showed no comprehension. “Apparently it’s all the rage these days. It blocks magic. It also causes never-ending pain to any injury it infects. I was wondering what it would do if someone ingested it, myself.” She shrugged and Scarab gripped the table to keep himself upright, but his face was rapidly going grey and his gasps for breath more ragged and wheezing._

_“If you’d been younger and stronger you’d probably be able to survive with just a good deal of daily pain in your gut. As it is, I’d hazard you’re having a heart attack right now, aren’t you, Dreylan?”_

_Scarab’s lips moved but Scorn couldn’t tell if they were curses or pleas, and didn’t much care. She just sat there and watched him try to breathe, and shudder, and by the time he fell off his chair he was dead. Scorn got to her feet and took back the bottle, and looked at Sanguine with a sweet, sweet smile._

_“I trust our master can count on_ your _loyalty, Billy-Ray.”_

_Sanguine swallowed and let out a raspy, barking laugh. “What the hell. Tell me who to stab and were to stab ’em, and I’m your man.”_

_“Good,” said Scorn, and she swept past him out of the room, and left Scarab’s corpse to cool behind her._


	30. Unanswered questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for a bonus story.

The sun was shining. The waves were calm against the city’s shores. Seagulls were cawing on the breeze. The sounds of labour and construction were everywhere Erskine went, sometimes drifting over half the Watercourse, but that was okay. As much damage had been done, the fact was that the Tír was safe and nearly all its residents still on it to rebuild.

Traffic in and out was going to be tough for a while, so as not to overtax the new dimensional bridges, but this time around Creyfon wasn’t the only one building them. After this, there would be a half-dozen other shunters who’d be able to do his work in case he went anywhere again.

Erskine wouldn’t have been there, but Anton had been testing the Hotel’s corridor into and out of the city by bringing in some extra supplies before the bridges had been built, and Erskine had taken advantage of the opportunity. He still had some questions that needed answering. That was why he wasn’t at any of the construction sites, his house, Central Tower or even the Green.

Instead he was watching a man who looked a lot like Vaurien Scapegrape’s picture sort fish with a dull smile on his face. Erskine asked the foreman, “And you’ve known all this time?”

“Yes,” said the foreman with a shrug, eyeing Erskine nervously and looking like he wasn’t sure whether he should be enjoying the sidelong attention his employees were giving him. There was going to be no living down that ‘prince’ moniker after this, Erskine thought ruefully. “Frankly, the reflection’s a better worker. Does what its told and doesn’t hassle the other workers like Scapegrace did. I figured he found someplace better, and good riddance.”

“I haven’t met him,” said Erskine, “but I can’t say I blame you.” He would have liked to get angry, but even after two days’ recovery he was too tired, and from all he’d heard he could imagine that the foreman was just thankful to have that particular thorn out of the way. He might have found it strange that Scapegrace never came back, but not enough to take the risk asking about it would have made it happen.

It did explain why there were no records of Scapegrace leaving, though. However he’d managed to slip out, as far as everyone else was concerned he was still there. Erskine had checked at his apartment building; no one wanted the real Scapegrace back. The reflection was better company. It said something about the man, that everyone Erskine had talked to felt that way.

Erskine shook his head. “Okay. Thank you.”

He moved off and the foreman went back to barking orders behind him. For a little while Erskine wandered through the streets, just to see what was happening and how people were doing. Many of them, like the fishmongers, had gone back to their work as though nothing had happened. Many others, like the masons, had extra work to deal with and would be on overtime for months.

Digger and Signate were out of hospital. Alice, pale and withdrawn, was still in. It would be a few months before she was back on duty, if she chose to go back at all. Erskine hadn’t gotten up the courage to speak to her yet, but he already knew Hopeless would prod him into doing so. Of anyone, Erskine had the experience to help.

But for the most part people were cheerful. A bit pale, a bit prone to clinging to their family members or taking time out to gossip and catch up, but with a renewed sort of energy and purpose. Corrival was right, Erskine found himself thinking. He’d helped save the city, but not because they had needed him. It was because there was something he _could_ do to help.

Right now, they didn’t need him at all. It somehow made him feel both relieved and a bit sad, as though his child had grown up without him noticing. Then he laughed quietly at himself and a few people looked around and double-took, and he moved off into the crowd before he could draw too much attention.

By the time he got back to the Hotel Anton had nearly finished unloading supplies. Or rather, the team who had come back to Ireland with them had nearly finished. Anton stood to the side, looking as unhappy as Anton could because Erskine had given the couriers strict orders not to let Anton do any heavy lifting until his healer said he could.

“Ready?” Anton asked when Erskine entered, and he nodded. They waited until everyone from the Tír had exited and then Anton took them back to Ireland, where they called Fletcher to take them into the Sanctuary.

The others were waiting for them there, in Hopeless’s office. All of them, together for the first time in a year. Erskine hadn’t realised how much it felt like something was missing until he went in and looked around, and saw them all there.

Dexter was lying on the bed, his head in Rover’s lap and damaged hand resting on a plump pillow. There was permanent damage. He’d still be able to energy-throw with it, probably even conjure, but otherwise it was just as well he as ambidextrous. If he was lucky, Kenspeckle had said, he’d be able to hold a pen tight enough to write with it after the physical therapy was over.

The moment they entered Rover’s gaze snapped to Anton and his whole face relaxed. After having collapsed and slept for a day Rover had woken in a panic, remembering only that Anton’s gist had half-killed him. Since then he had been dividing his time between hovering over his husband and his best friend equally.

Saracen was on the couch, reaping his concussion for all it was worth. He scowled at Erskine and Erskine smiled sunnily back, lifting up his feet and plopping them on the floor, and sitting down.

“Everything fine on the Tír?” Ghastly asked with that little grin that twisted the scars around his cheeks, and Saracen’s scowl deepened. After all his gloating about ‘just knowing things’, he’d been the last one to know about the Tír. No one had any intention of letting him live it down.

“They’ve already started rebuilding,” said Erskine. “Corrival was right. As it turns out, I needed them a lot more than they need me. Which is exactly what you intended, I suppose.”

This last was shot at Hopeless, but Hopeless only widened his eyes innocently, his hands steepled over his desk so he looked regal and child-like at once. Erskine snorted and sank into the sofa.

Skulduggery sat in an armchair, clad in one of his favourite suits and with a hat perched jauntily on his skull. It wasn’t the suit he’d been wearing when Erskine and Anton left, and it hadn’t been the suit he’d been wearing the night before, either. So far Erskine had measured that he averaged out to changing them every three hours.

He still claimed they were hallucinations. Maybe there was a part of him that would always believe that. But right now he was sitting silently with his head tilted in contemplation, and watching each of them as they spoke with an intensity that would have been unnerving it they could only have seen it in a face.

Ghastly had barely left his side. Erskine didn’t know whether that was helping or not.

“What did we miss?” Erskine asked, and lifted his arms so Saracen didn’t kick him as he shoved his feet on his lap.

“Valkyrie woke up,” said Dexter. “I’m pretty sure Melissa and Desmond are going to have to tie her down so she doesn’t break her leg again when they tell her about the baby.”

“Gail? Bliss? China?”

“You’re not worried about China,” Rover accused.

Erskine grinned. “Not in the least. Just tell me she’s unhappy and I’ll be pleased.”

“I don’t know about _un_ happy,” Ghastly said, “but she’s not _happy_. From what I saw before she left the Sanctuary we can count on her help to find Marr. In the meantime, we get to discover what Bliss is like as a hospital patient.”

“You mean _I_ get to discover it,” Dexter grumbled. “Bliss _and_ Guild. Joy. He seems to be pretending Hopeless doesn’t exist, by the way. It’s all ‘Grand Mage’ this and ‘Grand Mage’ that, like the title has become a person.”

_‘The other children have been sent home,’_ Hopeless signed, ‘ _but Gail’s still in a coma. Her burns will heal, mostly, but she’ll stay asleep until we figure out exactly how her mind’s been tampered with.’_

“It can’t just have been her name,” Dexter said. “When we brought her back I told her she wasn’t beholden to previous orders. It should have removed everything else.”

_‘It would have been an item or a Sensitive, or both.’_ Hopeless reached into his desk and took out a small box, and opened it so the others could see inside. Erskine didn’t have to look. He already knew what it was.

“An amethyst?” Rover demanded.

“Not just an amethyst,” Ghastly. “This is a psychic-powered crystal, isn’t it?” Hopeless nodded. “But they’re usually only used for wiping minds completely—the ones that are left, anyway.”

_‘I’ve had this one for a long time,’_ Hopeless signed. _‘It’s powerful, even by the standards of the ones that got destroyed.’_

“Ah,” said Skulduggery. “You used that during Erskine’s therapy, didn’t you? I did wonder whether you were using supplemental materials.” He nodded. “I’m so intelligent I even surprise myself.”

_‘I usually keep it in my cottage, but when I went home after the Tír was grounded I found it had been moved,’_ Hopeless signed. _‘It could have been taken at any point from 5.30am onward, and returned at any point before 6. If a Sensitive used it they could very well have implanted a command in Gail’s mind, and used her name as a diversion.’_

“That would explain why neither Gail nor Marr could remember the mystery man,” Ghastly murmured. “Whoever it is wants to remain unknown even to the people on his side.”

“Whoever it is doesn’t have as much control of them as he wanted us to think,” Saracen pointed out, and waggled his feet at Erskine. “Rub my feet.”

“No.”

“My patience is thin, Ravel. You humiliated me and my magic in front of _everyone_. Rub my feet.” Erskine snorted, but he pulled off Saracen’s socks and wrapped his hands around one foot, and kneaded Saracen’s sole. Saracen sank into the cushions with a sigh. “As I was saying. Whoever’s pulling the strings depends on go-betweens, and that bit him in the arse. Valkyrie and Tanith got us out with barely a hitch. They weren’t ready.”

“We’re lucky he’s still consolidating his power,” said Erskine. “With Saracen and Guild captured, Anton, Ghastly, Rover, Skulduggery and I unavailable and Dexter helpless—”

“I was not helpless,” Dexter grumbled.

Rover stroked his hair. “There, there, wifey. We know the truth.”

“—and full knowledge of Hopeless’s magic, not to mention Gail as his Trojan horse, he nearly swept aside most of the major powers in Ireland in one fell swoop.”

“If this is him _consolidating_ his power, I don’t want to see him after it’s already consolidated,” said Ghastly. “Erskine, Dex said you were investigating Scapegrace. What did you find?”

“His reflection,” Erskine said with a shrug. “Apparently the reflection is better company. No one I spoke to was fooled, but none of them wanted to alert anyone to his disappearance in case they got him back.”

Rover snorted. “Good riddance.”

“That’s what they said.”

“As long as we keep that stone under lock and key and keep an eye on any Sensitives with anything remotely close to the power to impart subconscious commands, we should be able to keep our radars fairly broad,” said Dexter. “He’ll have trouble hiding if he can’t erase memories. Skulduggery, that’s your phone ringing.”

Skulduggery looked down at his vibrating pocket. “Ah. It is too.”

But he made no movement to answer it, so Ghastly sighed and reached into his pocket, and put it on speaker. “Skulduggery’s phone.”

 “Hey, Ghast,” said Finbar Wrong. Erskine had only met him a handful of times, but he remembered a dazed youth with a passion for tattoos. Wrong’s voice now was oddly alert, if a little bit shaky. “Got a message for Skul-man when he gets back.”

“He’s back,” said Ghastly.

“Yeah? Cool. Send him ’round sometime, Sharon’s been askin’ where he is. Says she misses his stimulating conversation.”

_Sharon?_ Erskine mouthed at Dexter, and Dexter shrugged.

“What’s your message, Finbar?” Ghastly asked patiently.

“Right, right. Had a vision.” He stopped then, like he was distracted, but then Erskine heard a gulp and the thud of a glass.

“Finbar?”

“Vision,” said Finbar. “It’s gonna spread. Like a virus.”

“What’s going to spread?” Dexter asked.

“Viruses spread like a virus,” Rover mused.

“The vision’s gonna spread,” Finbar said. “Saw it goin’ ’round like the flu. Within a few days every Sensitive in Ireland’s gonna light up like a cricket on weed.”

“What was in the vision, Finbar?” Ghastly asked, and now he sounded a little bit tense. Erskine knew how he felt. They’d only just come off a nation-wide emergency, not to mention a more personal one. It would have been nice to have a break.

“Saw a man,” Finbar said, and now his voice was slurred. Depending on what he was drinking, that could have been responsible. Or he could still be halfway into his vision. “Tall, man, real tall. Couldn’t see his face, just his shadow. Heard him talkin’ though.”

“Did you recognise his voice?” Skulduggery asked, his head tilting and his eyeless sockets directed toward the phone in Ghastly’s hand.

“Yeah,” said Wrong. “It sounded like Mevolent.”


	31. Bonus story: Discovering Guilty Pleasures

It took a long time for Ghastly to wake up one morning and realise he was okay.

It hadn’t happened when he started searching for the Murder Skull, hoping that the pretence of going through the motions would help alleviate some of the pain. It hadn’t happened when he and the rest of the Dead Men came within days of finding it, or when an unknown force moved it so far from their grasp they might as well have given up. It hadn’t even happened when Rover woke up, none the worse for wear, weak and groggy from months as a statue and clutching Ghastly’s shoulders for support, but _alive_.

It happened instead on a day that wasn’t different from any other. Ghastly woke up anticipating the day’s tasks, got dressed, and then realised that he was actually _anticipating the day’s tasks_. Anton had insisted Ghastly help him with the day-to-day maintenance of the Hotel when they weren’t off chasing the skull, even when Ghastly couldn’t have cared less. Especially when Ghastly couldn’t have cared less. And this morning, like a ray of sunshine beaming through a slate-grey sky, he cared. He cared about clean windows. The irony nearly made him laugh.

By the time Ghastly arrived downstairs the common room was empty save for two of the Hotel’s more temporary guests. Anton turned out to be in the kitchen, cleaning up after breakfast. Ghastly cleared his throat, picked up a dishrag and started helping dry the wet dishes. “Where is everyone?”

“Preventing Erskine from stringing up another vampire by his ankles,” Anton answered.

“What vampire?”

“Someone called Caelan. He was rescued from the underground fighting ring last month. He claims to know how to get in contact with Chabon.”

“Ah.” Ghastly nodded. Chabon. Thames Chabon. The notorious black-market dealer rumoured to be in possession of the infamous Murder Skull. “Okay.”

Anton handed him another dish, then tossed the sponge into the sink and turned towards the fridge. “When you’ve finished here, would you dust the lobby, please?”

Ghastly nodded again. Anton never expected a verbal reply. Helping the Hotel-owner was remarkably simple that way; the chores were gruelling and often repetitive, but they worked like a great big mental washing machine. Ghastly didn’t have to think if he didn’t want to.

The open shelves behind the lobby desk were the easiest, so he started with them, saving the taller cabinet for last so he could pull out the chair to reach the highest books. The chair scraped across the wooden floorboards with a jerk, surprising Ghastly enough for him to step backwards into the cabinet behind him and knock one of the smaller books off the middle shelf with his elbow. He bent down, grumbling, to retrieve it, and was about to put it back when he noticed the author.

_‘Guilty Pleasures’_ , by Dexter Vex.

It was the book from Gordon’s will. The one he’d published at Dexter’s request. The one Anton took while they were in the lawyer’s office and, apparently, had never returned. A few days ago, Ghastly would have shrugged and slipped the book back into its proper place. Today, he found himself in the grip of an idle curiosity he hadn’t experienced in months, and sat down in Anton’s chair to read.

One chapter in he decided it wasn’t bad, if not quite bestseller material. It was unnerving to read about himself as written by someone who knew him far too well, but not quite unnerving enough to put Ghastly off reading. Two chapters in, and … well, he still hadn’t put the book down. That was something. Three chapters in, Ghastly realised how much time he was wasting, and flipped ahead several pages to skim for the ending.

Two lines caught his eye. He stopped, blinked, and reread them. Then he reread them again. Then, driven by the sort of morbid curiosity that slows motorists down when they’re passing a burning crash, he _kept_ reading, sinking deeper and deeper into the chair as he went.

About three or four pages later, Ghastly pulled out his phone and called Dexter. He let the noise of the dial tone fill his ears while he stared absently at the book, then came to his senses abruptly enough to snap the book closed and toss it onto the desk. It slid across the polished surface and fell off the other side.

_Good riddance_ , Ghastly thought, just before Dexter picked up.

“Ghastly, you’re awake! We’re a little too far away to pick you up or anything, but—”

“Please,” Ghastly interrupted him, “tell me that there’s only one copy of this … _book_ in existence.”

At first Dexter was silent. When he spoke again, his tone was much more appropriately contrite. “Oh. You … found it. Yes, it’s the only book in existence. I promise. Gordon didn’t want to spend the money to publish—that is, I wouldn’t have _dreamed_ of publishing more than one. Would you at least let me have a running head start?”

“I don’t know,” said Ghastly. “How far away are you?”

“We just left. We’re right outside the door. You should really give me two or three hours’ head start. Possibly even a full day.”

“You have ten minutes.”

“It was a joke! It was only ever meant to be for Rover and—”

“Rover knows about this?” Ghastly sighed. “Of course Rover knows about this.”

“He was just making so many stupid jokes during the war. I don’t mean anything by it. You know that, right?”

“Dexter,” said Ghastly slowly, “you had it _published_.”

“I had _one copy_ published! And Anton isn’t going to let me have it back, so it isn’t as though I can actually do anything with it.”

“Such as?”

“Well—” Dexter faltered. “You know. Burn it. Or put it under lock and key. Certainly not take it on book signing tours.”

“Is Rover there with you?”

Dexter hesitated. “Yes?”

“Tell him I’m disowning him.”

“Oh, he won’t be happy to hear that.”

“I’m disowning you, too.”

“Now _that’s_ uncalled f—”

“You’re sure it’s the only book in existence?”

“Yes,” Dexter assured him. “It’s the only book in existence. Ghastly, please. It was a _joke_.”

“If it was a joke, why did you try to hide it from me?”

“Because it was an inside joke. I don’t know. You’re not going to burn it, are you?”

Ghastly considered, tapping his fingers along the edge of the phone while he stood up and walked around the corner of the desk. The book came into view like some sort of maritime monster, lying as innocently as it was possible for a book like that to lie on the lobby’s carpeted floor. “No,” he finally decided. “Not yet. I’m going to show the book to Skulduggery first. _Then_ I’m going to burn it.”

He could almost hear Dexter swallowing down his fear on the other end of the line. “Can we maybe negotiate on the whole showing-it-to-Skulduggery thing?”

“No.”

“Ghastly, he’s going to kill me.”

“You should have thought of that before you wrote it.”

“Do you think _Gordon_ thought about anything before he started writing all of his books? Do you think any great writer _ever_ thought about what they were going to—?”

“You’re a far cry from a great writer,” Ghastly informed him as he nudged the corner of the book with his toe. “And your ideas are terrible.”

“And for that, I deserve to die?”

“For that,” said Ghastly, “you deserve to believe you’re going to.”

With that he hung up and put the book back where it belonged. He was just turning away when Anton appeared in the lobby doorway, looking more concerned than Ghastly had seen him look in a very long time. “Is everything alright?”

“Peachy,” Ghastly told him. “Nearly finished.”

“You’re smiling.”

“Am I?”

“Yes,” said Anton. “You are.”

“Huh.” Ghastly turned back to the shelves he had yet to dust, and shrugged. “Fancy that.”


End file.
